FIVE YEAR PLAN
The economy of India is based in part on planning through its five year plans, developed, executed and monitored by the planning commission. With the prime minister as the ex-officio chairman, the commission has a nominated Deputy Chairman, who has a rank of a cabinet minister. Montek Singh Ahluwalia is currently the deputy chairman of the commission.
Planning process is a continuous and long term process. It is known as perspective planning. Long term plans are mostly for 5 year, 7 year and 10 year term. In India, it is 5 year plan whereas in Russia and China there are 7 year and 10 year plans. A long term plans achieve better economic results. On the contrary, a short period plan has very little success. A short time plan has the greatest advantage of requiring a little investment.
Our first five year plan started in 1951. It was a traditional economy and agriculture oriented plan. The size of investment was so small. The plan did not make large scale changes in the economic structure of the country. As composed to first plan, the second five year plan laid more emphasis on industrial development in the second five year plan.
Originally the draft of the first plan was prepared by the planning committee. Later, the planning commission was formed for this purpose. All the five year plans, first to eighth has been formulated by the planning commission. Each plan has its plan size, objectives, priorities and investment schedule.
Five year plans are for a period of five years but sometimes due to unavoidable circumstances the execution of the plan is delayed. The tenth plan completed is term in March 2007, eleventh plan 2007 to 2012 is currently underway.
Indian economy has advanced considerably through the five year plans. This progress has touched all the aspects of socio-economic development. The development of plan evaluation analyses these achievements and failures of specific plans.