(i) The Planning Commission should be divested of its executive function, so that it may concentrate on the planning and evaluation functions; and that therefore, functions relating to public cooperation, and Rural Industries should be transferred to the concerned Ministries; the Joint Technical Group on Transport Planning should be rounded up and the management and administration division and its work relating to performance budgeting be transferred to the Finance Ministry;
(ii) The Commission’s secretariat should be reorganized with a view to focusing its activities around two principal functions of
(a) Plan formulation and revision of and
(b) Plan appraisal and evaluation and thus, also help in reducing waste in money and personnel; and
(iii) Long-term research activities also should be taken away from the Planning Commission; primary research work should be getting organized through other official and non-official agencies; and operating and field agencies of the government should be used for the purpose of collection of data.
(iv) Ministers should not be appointed as members of the Commission.
(v) The number of members should not be more than seven and term of the office should be five years.
(vi) The cabinet as a whole, and not its sub-committees, should finally decide on the proposals referred to it by the Commission.
(vii) The Prime Minister has to be closely associated with the working of the commission without being its chairman.
The Government accepted all these recommendations of the A.R.C. and reorganized the Commission and its secretariat in 1969 accordingly. The reorganized pattern of the Commission is as follows:-
The Commission is organizing into two Secretariat branches for dealing with the work relating to (i) Administrative work in the Planning Commission; and (ii) Coordination.