Planning strategy

India after achieving independence adopted the strategy of economic planning for its various economic goals including growth & development. So far 10 five-year plans & a few annual plans have already been completed. This is the 11 th five-year in which the country has entered. At the time of independence, Indian economy was facing the problems of acute poverty, unemployment & the quality of life was extremely low. To solve these problems 5-year planning was adopted. During all these years of planning, the country has achieved some kind of growth but the main problems of poverty, inequality & unemployment have not eradicated. Therefore, what is important is that the steps have to be taken which can ensure rapid growth of the economy & also the removal of poverty, inequality & unemployment.

OBJECTIVES OF ECONOMIC PLANNING:

1. Rapid Economic Growth: The basic aim of economic planning in India has

been to bring about rapid economic growth through development of agriculture, industry, power, transport & communication and all other sectors of the economy. The basic measure of economic growth of a country is the continuous expansion year after year of real natural income & real per capita income. Economic growth should also include improvement in quality of life consisting of life expectancy, infant mortality, literacy etc. During the last 60 years the growth rate has been between 5 & 7% but the increase of income was not accompanied by removal of poverty.

2. Increase in Employment: Unemployment is a very important cause of poverty in

India. Hence an important objective of planning has been removal of unemployment. This may be admitted that the government has not succeeded in creating sufficient number of jobs, so that unemployment to some extent is minimized.

3. Reduction of Inequality of Income: A very small group of persons in India are

better off. There are rich landlords, merchants, industrialists, bankers & top officials. The vast majority of people are however very poor because their income is low. Even though income inequalities have always been mentioned as one of the objectives in all the plans but 5 year plans never had a clear, positive strategy to redistribute wealth & income.

4. Establishment of Socialist Society: Finally, the Indian planners visualized the

establishment of a socialist society in which everyone would have equal opportunities in the matter of education, occupation etc. Wealth would be distributed equally & there would be no concentration of economic power in the hands of a few individuals & families. But the ground reality is that not much has been done in this regard.