Third Five Year Plan (1961-1966)
By the beginning of the Third Plan, the Indian planners felt: that the Indian economy had entered the “take-off stage” and that the first two plans had generated an institutional structure needed for rapid economic development. Consequently, the Third Plan set as its goal the establishment of a self-reliant and self-generating economy. But the working of the Second Plan had also shown that the rate of growth of agricultural production was the main limiting factor in India’s economic development. The experience of the first two plans suggested that agriculture should be assigned top priority. The Third Plan accordingly gave top priority to agriculture but it also laid adequate emphasis on the development of basic industries, which were vitally necessary for the rapid economic development of the country. However, because India conflicted with China in 1962 and with Pakistan in 1965, the approach of the Third Plan was later shifted from development to defence and development.
Specific Objectives
- To secure an increase of 6% of the national income per annum.
- To achieve self-sufficiency in foodgrains and to increase agricultural production.
- To expand basic industries such as steel, fuel, power, chemicals etc.
- To fully utilise the human resources of the country to expand employment opportunities. To reduce inequalities in income and wealth and to ensure even distribution of economic power.
Annual Plans (1966 – 69)
Because of the numerous difficulties experienced during the third plan period, the Indian planners hesitated to formulate the fourth plan, immediately after the end of the * third plan. They felt that before the commencement of the fourth plan, the economy should be again put on rails. Accordingly, they advocated the formulation of annual plans with the primary objective of using the existing infrastructure to the fullest extent. Thus, we had three annual plans in 1966-67, 1967-68 and 1968-69. At the end of the third annual plan, the economy was in a period of relative economic stability. Import substitution and recovery in agricultural production helped the economy very much.
Fourth Five Year Plan (1969-1974)
The original draft outline of the Fourth Plan prepared in 1966 under the stewardship of Ashok Mehta had to be abandoned on account of the drought, – the devaluation of the rupee and the inflationary recession. Instead, three Annual Plans (1966-69) euphemistically described as “Plan Holiday” were implemented. India learnt a bitter lesson during the Indo-Pakistan war when its so-called allies refused to supply essential equipment and raw materials for its economic development. The Fourth Plan set before itself the two principal objectives “growth with stability” and “progressive achievement of self-reliance”. The Fourth Plan aimed at an average 5.5 per cent rate of growth in the national income and the provision of national minimum for the weaker sections of the community, the latter came to be known as the objectives of growth with justice and “garibi Hatao” (Removal of poverty).
Specific Objectives
- To achieve growth with stability
- To be self-reliant on
- To increase the national income by 5.5% per annum
- To stabilise the price level in the case of foodgrains and other essential commodities.
- To accelerate the tempo, of development > To reduce and gradually stop the import of foodgrains
- To correct regional imbalances
- To create more employment opportunities
- To reduce inequalities in income and wealth further
- To allow agriculture and consumer co-operatives to play an important role in rural areas. >
- To attain social justice
- To restructure public enterprises.
Fifth five-year plan (1974-79)
The Fifth Plan was introduced at the time when the country was reeling under a veritable economic crisis arising out of run-away inflation, fuelled by the hike in oil prices since September 1973 and failure of the Government take-over of the wholesale trade in wheat. But the Indian planners were concerned with the slogans of ‘Garibi Hatao’ (removal of poverty and the “growth with social justice”. The original approach paper of the Fifth Plan was prepared under C. Subramaniam in 1972 emphasised that “the main causes of abject poverty were open unemployment, under-employment and low resource base of a very large number of producers in agriculture and service sectors.” The elimination of poverty could not be attained simply by an acceleration in the rate of growth of the economy alone but the strategy should be to launch a direct attack on the problems of unemployment, under-employment and massive low-end. poverty. But this approach was eventually abandoned and the final draft of the Fifth Plan prepared and launched by D.P. Dhar proposed to achieve the two main objectives, viz., removal of poverty and attainment of self-reliance, through the promotion of higher rate of growth, better distribution of income and a very significant step-up in the domestic rate of saving. The Fifth Plan was terminated at the end of the fourth year of the Plan in March 1978.
Specific Objectives
- To remove poverty
- To attain self-reliance
- To achieve a 5.5% overall average growth rate per annum.
- To increase productive employment opportunities.
- To ensure effective public procurement and distribution/systems.
- To vigorovśly work for import substitution and export promotion.
- To take fiscal and other relevant measures to reduce inequalities in income.
Here are some notes on Sixth And Seventh Year Plans.