Five Year Plans in India

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Introduction
Structure
Five Year Plans

India at the time of independence was left with crippling economy by British, which needed attention and
well planned strategies to boom again in the global market. The pioneers of the Indian government at
then times formulated 5 years plan to develop the Indian economy.

The five years plan in India is framed, executed and monitored by the Planning Commission of India.
Jawaharlal Nehru was the chairman of the first Planning Commission of India.

The duty of the chairman of the planning commission in India is served by the Prime Minister of the
country. The tenth plan finished its term in March 2007 and the eleventh plan is currently underway.

Objectives and success of different Five Year Plans in India:

• 1st Five Year Plan (1951-56)

It aimed towards the improvement in the fields of agriculture, irrigation and power and the plan
projected to decrease the countries reliance on food grain imports, resolve the food crisis and ease the
raw material problem especially in jute and cotton.

Nearly 45% of the resources were designated for agriculture, while industry got a modest 4.9%.The focus
was to maximize the output from agriculture, which would then provide the momentum for industrial
growth.

1st five year plan proved dramatic success as agriculture production hiked, national income went up by
18%, per capita income by 11% and per capita consumption by 9%.

• 2nd Five Year Plan (1956-61)

It projected towards the agriculture programs and to meet the raw material needs of industry, besides
covering the food needs of the increasing population. The Industrial Policy of 1956 was socialistic in
nature. The plan aimed at 25% increase in national income.

Second Five Year Plan showed a moderate success. Agricultural production was greatly affected by the
unfavorable monsoon in 1957-58 and 1959-60 and also the Suez crisis blocked International Trading
increasing commodity prices.

• 3rd Five Year Plan (1961-66)

Plan’s main motive was to make the country self reliant in agriculture and industry and for this allotment
for power sector was increased to 14.6% of the total disbursement.

The plan aimed to increase national income by 30% and agriculture production by 30% and to promote
economic developments in backward areas; unfeasible manufacturing units were augmented with
subsidies and agriculture production by 30%.

The 3rd five year plan was affected by wars with China in 1962 and Pakistan 1965 and bad monsoon.

• 4th Five Year Plan (1969-74)

This five year plan mainly emphasized on encouraging education and creating employment opportunities
for the marginalized section of the society as improvement in their standard of living would only make the
country economically self- reliant.

Another aim of the plan was to create awareness about the Family planning program among Indians.The
achievements of the fourth plan were not as per the expectations as agriculture and industrial growth was
just at 2.8% and 3.9% respectively.

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• 5th Five Year Plan (1974-79)
The fifth plan mainly aimed on checking inflation and various non-economic variables like nutritional
requirements, health, family planning etc. The plan anticipated 5.5% growth rate in national income.

The plan could not complete its 5 year tenure and was discontinued by the new Janata government in the
fourth year only.

• 6th Five Year Plan (1980-85)

The 6th five year plan was formulated by the Congress government in 1980 which equally focused on
infrastructure and agriculture. The plan was successful in achieving a growth of 6% pa.

• 7th Five Year Plan (1985-1989)

The plan focused at improving various sectors like welfare, education, health, family planning and also
encouraged employment opportunities. The plan introduced programs like Jawahar Rozgar Yojana.

This plan was proved successful in spite of severe drought conditions for first three years consecutively.

• Period (1989 - 1991)

This period was of political instability hence, no five year plan was implemented during the period; only
annual plans were made for the period between 1990 and 1992. The country faced severe balance of
payment crisis.

• 8th Five Year Plan (1992-1997)

The eighth plan aimed towards modernization of industries, poverty reduction, encouraging employment,
strengthening the infrastructure. Other important concerned areas were devaluation of rupees,
dismantling of license prerequisite and decrease trade barriers.

The plan helped to achieve an annual growth rate of 5.6% in GDP and also controlled inflation.

• 9th Five Year Plan (1997-2002)

The ninth five year plan focused on increasing agricultural and rural income and to improve the
conditions of the marginal farmer and landless laborers.

The plan helped to achieve average annual growth rate of 6.7%.

• 10th Five Year Plan (2002-2007)

The 10th five year plan targeted towards making India’s economy as the fastest growing economy on the
global level, with an aim to raise the growth rate to 10% and to reduce the poverty rate and increase the
literacy rate in the country.

The plan showed success in reducing poverty ratio by 5%, increasing forest cover to 25%, increasing
literacy rates to 75 % and taking the economic growth of the country over 8%.

• 11th Five Year Plan (2007-2012)

The eleventh five year plan targets to increase GDP growth to 10%, to reduce educated unemployment to
below 5% while it aims to reduce infant mortality rate to 28 and maternal mortality ratio to 1 per 1000
live births, reduce Total Fertility Rate to 2.1 in the health sector.

The plan also targets to ensure electricity connection and clean drinking water to all villages and increase
forest and tree cover by 5%.

Note: For details log on to :

http://planningcommission.gov.in/plans/planrel/fiveyr/welcome.html

he Planning Commission was set up by a Resolution of the Government of India in March 1950 in
pursuance of declared objectives of the Government to promote a rapid rise in the standard of
living of the people by efficient exploitation of the resources of the country, increasing production

Prepared by Satish Kumar .K

and offering opportunities to all for employment in the service of the community. The Planning
Commission was charged with the responsibility of making assessment of all resources of the
country, augmenting deficient resources, formulating plans for the most effective and balanced
utilisation of resources and determining priorities. Jawaharlal Nehru was the first Chairman of the
Planning Commission.

The first Five-year Plan was launched in 1951 and two subsequent five-year plans were
formulated till 1965, when there was a break because of the Indo-Pakistan Conflict. Two
successive years of drought, devaluation of the currency, a general rise in prices and erosion of
resources disrupted the planning process and after three Annual Plans between 1966 and 1969,
the fourth Five-year plan was started in 1969.

The Eighth Plan could not take off in 1990 due to the fast changing political situation at the Centre
and the years 1990-91 and 1991-92 were treated as Annual Plans. The Eighth Plan was finally
launched in 1992 after the initiation of structural adjustment policies.

For the first eight Plans the emphasis was on a growing public sector with massive investments in
basic and heavy industries, but since the launch of the Ninth Plan in 1997, the emphasis on the
public sector has become less pronounced and the current thinking on planning in the country, in
general, is that it should increasingly be of an indicative nature.

Prepared by Satish Kumar .K