Achievements And Failures Of Planning

Achievements And Failures Of Planning

India has completed more than fifty years of planning. It is therefore important to review it to understand the achievements and failures of planning.

Achievements of Planning

It would be appropriate to include the following among the main achievements of planning in India. National income at 1993-94 prices rose from Rs. 1,32,367 crores at the beginning of the First Plan to Rs. 852,085 crores at the end of the Eighth Plan. Per capita income at 1993-94 prices had risen from Rs. 3,687 to Rs. 9007 between 1951 and 1997. Foodgrains production had gone up from 51 million tonnes at the beginning of the First Plan to 213 million tonnes by the end of the Ninth Plan- an increase by over four times.

Likewise, in every crop, production had increased by three or four times. Between 1951 and 2002, per capita consumption of food grains (i.e., cereals and pulses ) had increased considerably between a modest 30 per cent in the case of cereals and pulses to 220 per cent in the case of sugar, 640 per cent increase in the case of eggs and 116 times. increase in the consumption of domestic electric power. The increase in per capita consumption of essential consumer goods would have been much greater if the population had not risen from 361 million to an estimated 1,051 million between 1951 and 2002 or if population growth had been effective, controlled. It is also interesting to observe that despite the increase in per capita consumption of essential consumer goods, savings as a proportion of GDP had increased from 10.4 per cent in 1950-51 to 25.1 per cent in 200102.

At the beginning of the First Plan, consumption of chemical fertilisers ( consisting of nitrogenous, phosphatic and potassic fertilisers ) was less than a million tonnes; this had increased to over 17 million tonnes by 2001-02. The High Yielding Varieties Programme (HYVP) was started during the Third Plan. ( 1961-66) but by the end of the Eighth Plan, over 76 million hectares of land had come under this programme – nearly 75 per cent of this area was under improved varieties of rice and wheat. The area under irrigation had gone up from nearly 23 million hectares to nearly 77 million hectares in 2001-02.

1. Impressive industrialisation in the capital goods sector because of the leading role of the public sector.
2. Development of economic infrastructure energy, irrigation and transport.
3. Diversification of export and import substitution.
4. Rise in life expectancy of the Indian people.
5. Development of a huge educational system.
6. Development of science and technology Major indicators of economic progress in the country point towards an increase in industrial production and social progress.

Failures of Planning

Failure to provide a national minimum level of living No provision for employment of all? able-bodied persons. No significant reduction in the inequalities of income and wealth. Insufficient measures to correct inequalities and unaccounted money. Redistribution of land and quick transition to progressive agriculture not properly implemented.

The co-operatives were brought to provide a new institution which was expected to supplant the profit motive But the sad part is that the co-operative movement did not prove to be as effective as desired. In conclusion, it may be pointed out that so far there has been a great divergence between ideology and the actual economic situation. The philosophical foundations of the policies were sound but there was a crisis of implementation due to the existence of a gap between the theory and practice of socialism.

The purpose of land reforms, cooperative societies, Panchayati raj or even the rapid expansion of the public sector is defeated by the moral crisis that exists in India. Socialism has so far remained a mere slogan with very little policy content.

To sum up, the planning process has been able to create social and economic infrastructure, provide an industrial base by fostering the development of heavy and basic industries and enlarge educational opportunities, it failed to employ every able-bodied person, eliminate poverty and bring about institutional reforms leading to a reduction in the concentration of income and wealth. Moreover, the benefits from the economic infrastructure have accrued largely to the relatively affluent and those in urban areas.