The Direction Indian Economic Planning Has Taken

Sec­ond Plan (1956 – 61): The main focus of this plan was rapid indus­tri­al­i­sa­tion, and it relied on large imports financed by for­eign loans. There was a main shift from agri­cul­ture to indus­tri­al­iza­tion in India with the tar­get growth of 4.5 per cent and the actual growth rate dur­ing that period was 4.27 per cent which was sig­nif­i­cant. This plan is also called the Maha­lanobis Plan, after the well-known sta­tis­ti­cian P. C. Maha­lanobis. Dur­ing this plan, prices rose by 30 per cent, against a decline of 13 per cent dur­ing the First Plan.

Third Plan (1961 – 66): At its start, it was believed that the Indian econ­omy had entered the take-off stage. Thus, its aim was to make India a ‘self-reliant’ and ‘self-gen­er­at­ing’ econ­omy. Draw­ing on the expe­ri­ence of the first two plans, it gave agri­cul­ture top pri­or­ity to sup­port exports and indus­try. The plan failed badly to reach its tar­gets due to unfore­seen events – Chi­nese aggres­sion (1962), Indo-Pak war (1965), severe drought 1965-66. The tar­get for growth was 5.6 per cent but it had achieved only 2.84 per cent.

Three Annual Plans (1966-69): Dur­ing these years a new agri­cul­tural strat­egy was for­mu­lated and imple­mented. It involved the wide dis­tri­b­u­tion of high-yield­ing vari­eties of seeds, increase in the use of fer­til­iz­ers, more and more exploita­tion of irri­ga­tion poten­tial and also soil con­ser­va­tion. Pre­vail­ing cri­sis in agri­cul­ture and seri­ous food short­age neces­si­tated the empha­sis on agri­cul­ture in the period of the Annual Plans. Dur­ing these plans the econ­omy absorbed the shocks of the Third Plan period and pre­pared the ground for planned growth in the years that fol­lowed.

Fourth Plan (1969 – 74): The plan focused on rais­ing the growth rate of agri­cul­ture to enable other sec­tors to move for­ward at a faster rate. First two years of the plan saw record pro­duc­tion in every field. The last three years fell short because of poor mon­soons. Influx of Bangladeshi refugees before and after 1971 Indo-Pak war was also a sig­nif­i­cant rea­son. The growth tar­get was 5.7 per cent but achieved only 3.30 per cent.

Fifth Plan (1974-79): The Fifth Plan was drafted under D. P. Dhar. It had two main goals: removal of poverty (Garibi Hatao) and self-reliance. A higher rate of growth, bet­ter dis­tri­b­u­tion of income and a large rise in domes­tic sav­ings were seen as the key instru­ments. The plan was ended in 1978, a year early, when the Janata Party gov­ern­ment came to power. The growth tar­get was 4.4 per cent and actual growth was 4.8 per cent.

Rolling Plan (1978 – 80): Two Sixth Plans were for­mu­lated. The Janata gov­ern­ment pre­pared a plan for 1978-1983, but it stayed in power for only two years. The Con­gress Gov­ern­ment came in to power in 1980 and launched a dif­fer­ent plan in the coun­try.

Sixth Plan (1980 – 85): In the sixth plan main empha­sis was given on an increase in national income of the coun­try, mod­ern­iza­tion of tech­nol­ogy in every field, stress­ing on con­tin­u­ous decrease in poverty and unem­ploy­ment, more and more pop­u­la­tion con­trol through fam­ily plan­ning, etc. The growth tar­get was 5.2 per cent dur­ing this plan and there was an enhance­ment in it to 5.66 per cent.

Sev­enth Plan (1985 – 90): Dur­ing this plan the main stress was on notice­able growth in food-grains pro­duc­tion, increased employ­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties and pro­duc­tiv­ity within the frame­work of the basic tenets of plan­ning. The growth tar­get was 5.0 per cent dur­ing this plan and there was an enhance­ment in it to 6.01 per cent. That is why the plan was very suc­cess­ful.

Eighth Plan (1992 – 97): The eighth plan was post­poned by two years because of polit­i­cal uncer­tainty at the Cen­tre. The plan took dras­tic pol­icy mea­sures to deal with a bad eco­nomic sit­u­a­tion, tar­get­ing aver­age annual growth of 5.6 per cent; actual growth was 6.8 per cent. The adverse bal­ance of pay­ments posi­tion and infla­tion of 1990-91 were major con­cerns as the plan was car­ried out. The impor­tant eco­nomic out­comes dur­ing eighth plan period were huge eco­nomic growth, increase in the growth rate of agri­cul­ture and allied sec­tor e.g. sugar indus­try, and man­u­fac­tur­ing and pro­duc­tion indus­trial sec­tor, enhanc­ing the rate of exports and imports, improve­ment in trade and cur­rent account deficit etc.

Ninth Plan (1997- 2002): This plan was devel­oped in the direc­tion of four sig­nif­i­cant dimen­sions i.e. the qual­ity of life and stan­dard of liv­ing, gen­er­a­tion of pro­duc­tive employ­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties, regional bal­anced devel­op­ment and self-reliance growth. The growth tar­get was 6.5 per cent but achieved only 5.35 per cent.

Tenth Plan (2002 – 2007): The objec­tives of this plan were to achieve 8 per cent GDP growth; reduce the poverty ratio by 5 per­cent­age points by 2007; pro­vide gain­ful high qual­ity employ­ment to the addi­tion to the labour force over the tenth plan period, Uni­ver­sal access to pri­mary edu­ca­tion by 2007, reduce the gen­der gaps in lit­er­acy and wage rates by at least 50 per cent up to the time of 2007, Reduc­tion in decadal rate of pop­u­la­tion growth between 2001 and 2011 to 16.2 per cent, Increase in lit­er­acy rate to 72 per cent within the plan period and to 80 per cent by 2012, Reduc­tion of Infant Mor­tal­ity Rate (IMR) to 45 per 1000 live births by 2007 and to 28 by 2012, Increase in for­est and tree cover to 25 per cent by 2007 and 33 per cent by 2012, All vil­lages to have sus­tained access to potable drink­ing water by 2012, Clean­ing of all major pol­luted rivers by 2007 and other noti­fied stretches by 2012

Eleventh Plan (2007 – 2012): The goals of this plan were to Accel­er­ate GDP growth from 8 per cent to 10 per cent. Increase agri­cul­tural GDP growth rate to 4 per cent per year, to Cre­ate 70 mil­lion new work oppor­tu­ni­ties and reduce edu­cated unem­ploy­ment to below 5 per cent, to Raise real wage rate of unskilled work­ers by 20 per­cent, to Reduce dropout rates of chil­dren from ele­men­tary school from 52.2 per cent in 2003-04 to 20 per cent by 2011-12, to increase the lit­er­acy rate for per­sons aged 7 years or above to 85 per cent, to lower gen­der gap in lit­er­acy to 10 per­cent­age point. Increase the per­cent­age of each cohort going to higher edu­ca­tion from the present 10 per cent to 15 per cent, Reduce infant mor­tal­ity rate to 28 and mater­nal mor­tal­ity ratio to 1 per 1000 live births, to Reduce Total Fer­til­ity Rate to 2.1, to Pro­vide clean drink­ing water for all by 2009. Reduce mal­nu­tri­tion among chil­dren between 0-3 years to half its present level and to reduce ane­mia among women and girls by 50 per cent, to Raise the sex ratio for age group 0-6 to 935 by 2011-12 and to 950 by 2016-17, to Ensure that at least 33 per­cent of the direct and indi­rect ben­e­fi­cia­ries of all gov­ern­ment schemes are women and girl chil­dren, to Ensure all-weather road con­nec­tion to all habi­ta­tion with pop­u­la­tion 1000 and above (500 in hilly and tribal areas) by 2009, and ensure cov­er­age of all sig­nif­i­cant habi­ta­tion by 2015, to Con­nect every vil­lage by tele­phone by Novem­ber 2007 and pro­vide broad­band con­nec­tiv­ity to all vil­lages by 2012, to Increase for­est and tree cover by 5 per­cent­age points, to Attain WHO stan­dards of air qual­ity in all major cities by 2011-12, to Treat all urban waste water by 2011-12 to clean river waters and to increase energy effi­ciency by 20 per­cent­age points by 2016-17.

Twelfth Plan (2012 – 2017): The last Five Year Plan aimed at faster, more inclu­sive and sus­tain­able growth, with a growth tar­get of 8 per cent. In 2015 the Plan­ning Com­mis­sion was replaced by the NITI Aayog, and the Five Year Plans came to an end with this plan.