Krishna Chandra Pant was an Indian Member of Parliament for 26 years and was the Prime Minister’s interlocutor on Kashmir. He was a cabinet minister in the Government of India and held several constitutional positions over a period of 37 years.
Krishna Chandra Pant was an Indian Member of Parliament for 26 years and was the Prime Minister’s interlocutor on Kashmir. He was a cabinet minister in the Government of India and held several constitutional positions over a period of 37 years. Pant had held the positions of Minister for Defence, Minister of state for Home Affairs, Minister of Steel and Heavy Engineering, Finance, Atomic Energy and Science and Technology. He was the First Chairman of the Advisory Board on Energy, Chairman of the 10th Finance Commission and the Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission of India, the economic planning body of India; his Vision 2020 document was published as India’s Development Scenario, Next Decade and Beyond. Krishna Chandra Pant (K.C. Pant), informally known as “Raja” was born to the freedom fighter Govind Ballabh Pant and Smt. Kalawati Pant in Uttarakhand. His early years were spent in Nainital and his schooling was in St. Joseph’s College, Nainital. He moved to Lucknow, post-independence when his father was appointed as the Chief Minister of the State of Uttar Pradesh. He completed his post graduation from Lucknow University and went to Germany for further studies. In 1957, he married Ila Pant in Nainital.
Minister of the State for Home Affairs (1971–1973)..Pant was appointed as the Minister for Education in 1985. Minister of Defence (1987–1989). Chairman of the 10th Finance Commission (1992–95). Deputy Chairman Task Force for establishing the National Security Council (1998).. Deputy Chairman of the National Commission on Population (1999). Deputy Chairman, Planning Commission (1999–2004). He, along with his committee members, focused on agricultural development to achieve the goal of Hunger Free India. To ensure food security, he implemented strategies to double the food production, increase the employment and income in the agricultural sector, improved the rural infrastructure through poverty alleviation schemes and started distributing free food grains to the people below the poverty line. During his tenure, he concentrated on the other sectors too. In the education sector, investment was made in the PM’s Special Action Plan for the expansion and improvement of social infrastructure in education. Then, measures were adopted to increase the employment in the country. Measures were taken to improve the health of the industrial, railway and telecommunication sectors. On 1 January 2004 Pant as a Deputy Chairman, Planning Commission in his official statement confirmed that India’s GDP growth was at 8%.