Salient Features of Indian Planning

December 11, 2015 December 11, 2015

The planning era has ended with planning commission but here are some of the key features of Indian planning for academic purposes.

India’s plans are of 5-year period. The five year plans integrated the short term objectives with long term objectives.

The focus of the planning was not only on economic parameters but also on social parameters of growth and development. On one side, it focused on acceleration of the pace of growth, on other side, it focussed to minimize vertical and horizontal disparities. The focus of comprehensive planning was to achieve ‘inclusive growth’.

Even though India adopted mixed economy, it encouraged more participation of public sector in development process. Private sector was controlled through legislative restrictions like MRTP Act (to check on growth of monopolies). Public sector involved in provision of food grains and essential goods to people through a comprehensive public distribution system (PDS).
Since 1990’s the strategy was changed. Now the private sector is encouraged more to participate in development process.

At the formulation level as well as at the implementation level of plans, India followed the democratic approach. Planning commission prepares the draft plan and it was approved by the National Development Council(NDC) body, which included stakeholders from state governments. Opinions of various organisations and experts are taken into consideration while formulating the plans. While implementing the plans, bottom-up approach was followed with involvement of democratic bodies at village and district level.

Indian planning incorporated both short-term and long-term programmes of growth and development. The integration of both the strategies is required to exploit the potential of growth process.