Idea of development planning ( Sociology Optional)

EN

Introduction

• A development plansets out a local authority's policies and proposals for land use in their area. The term is usually used in the United Kingdom. A Local Plan is one type of development plan. Development planning is the umbrella item used to explain the economic policies adopted by third world countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America, in post-colonial phase.
• The development plans adopted by Communist countries are indicative in nature and are different from ‘controlling’ plans. Even public expenditure is authorized not by the plan but only by the Annual Budget passed by Parliament.

Thinkers Perspective

• According to Arthur Lewis, the Nobel Laureate (Economics, 1972), these plans differ so much in structure and content that the title 'Development Planning' no longer conveys a meaning.
• Max Weber: He examined the question of development planning and change in the context of his study on capitalism. According to him, culture (people’s beliefs and values) is the key element in development.
• Durkheim, he tried to find as to what it was in people’s religious and ethical beliefs that had enabled societies which started with similar technological endowment to develop and change in quite different ways.
• Karl Marx: argued that the processes of social change and development planning were in their nature not gradual and evolutionary; rather they were characterised by conflict of interests among classes in society.

Main elements of Development Planning

• Investigation of development potential: surveys of natural resources; scientific research; market research.
• Provision of adequate infrastructure: whether by public or by private agencies
• Ensure proper training and education for skill developments.
• Improving the legal framework of economic activity, especially laws related to land tenure, corporations, and commercial transactions.
• Seeking out and assisting potential entrepreneurs, both domestic and international.
• Promoting better utilization of resources by offering inducements and through controls against misuse.
• Promoting an increase in savings, in both private and public sector.

Steps needed to be taken

• A poor economy does not have reliable statistics in the initial years of planning (first and second plan) for macro- economic planning. Thus, it should concentrate of bringing order into the public sector's programmes and its economic policy.
• Experience must be acquired in planning, starting, scheduling, amending, evaluating projects  from time to time. Without a reasonably competent administrative machine, there is no basis for development planning. For Instance, by the third Plan understood need to construct an interdependent model for the whole economy.
• Response to demands is important whether to export demands, or to home demands, is also important.
• India is certainly ready for an elaborate mathematical model whereas in most of the simpler African economies such a model would do no good and as the Clay Committee.
• In the private sector statics may help but what really counts is policy. The Government is seeking to induce people what they want them to do like invest more in physical resources or in skills development, switch from one crop to another; adopt new technologies and so on to bring about these results.

Development Planning and Social Change in India

• Planning is the process of thinkingregarding the activities required to achieve a desired goal. Planning is based on foresight, the fundamental capacity for mental time travel. The evolution of forethought, the capacity to think ahead, is considered to have been a prime mover in human evolution.
• Origin: Planning in India was launched after Independence. The Government of India first appointed a Planning Commission with the Prime Minister of India as its Chairman in 1950 to prepare a blueprint for development taking an overall view of the needs and resources of the country.
• It envisages full employment at an adequate wage and reduction of inequality arising from the uneven distribution of income and wealth. The attainment of a high rate of growth has been a major goal of planning. It has been thought that this goal can be achieved by the coordinated efforts of both the public and private sectors of the economy

Phases of Development planning

• Background: The Five-Year Plans initiated since 1951 provided the basic framework for the strategies related to the Economic Development Planning of the country.
• In the manufacturing and service sectors, state played a commanding role by owning and operating many industries on its own and by regulating private investment through the licensing instrument for new industries. The Industrial development strategy based on the logic underlying in the Feldman-Mahalanobis model stressing on development of capital goods in the early phases of Industrialization.

Phases of The Five-Year Plans

• The first Five-Year Plan (1951-1956): It was launched when the country was recovering from trauma of the partition in 1947 and by the Second World War. The country had to import a large amount of food grains in 1951 because of an acute shortage of food grains. In view of this the plan accorded the highest priority to agriculture including Irrigation and Power projects. Almost 44.6 per cent of the total plan budget were spent on agriculture. At the end of the plan, the country’s national income increased by 18 percent and the per capita income by 11 per cent.
• The second Five-Year Plan (1956- 19B1): the priority shifted from Agriculture to Industry. It was during this plan that new objective was added to the Economic policy. It was popularly called the Socialistic pattern of society. This policy stressed that the benefits of planned development should go more to the relatively under privileged sections of society. Jawaharlal Nehru the then Prime Minister of India and Chairman of the Planning Commission said “We mean a society in which there is equal opportunity and the possibility for everyone to live a good life.”
• The third Fives-Your Plan (1961- 1966): It aimed at securing progress towards self-sustaining growth. Consequently, both Agriculture and Industry received equal priority in this plan. Its objectives were to achieve self-sufficiency in food grains and to increase agricultural production to meet the requirements of industry domestic needs and exports. It also aimed at expansion of industries like steel, chemicals, fuel and power. The performance of the third Plan was, however, discouraging. The national income grew just by 2.6 per cent as against the target 5 per cent. But in the agricultural sector production suffered a setback.
• The situation took a serious turn and launching of the fourth plan in March 1966 was delayed and the period between 1966-69 was often described as a period of ‘Plan holiday’.
• The Fourth Five-Year Plan (1969-1974): It aimed at achieving social justice with equity. The growth of both agricultural and industrial sectors was fully recognized under the Plan but again it could not achieve its targets neither in self-sufficiency in food grains nor in adequate employment generation The rate of inflation become unmanageable also.
• The fifth Five-Year Plan (1974- 1979): It was formulated when the economy was under heavy inflationary pressure. People became restive because of the burden of rising prices of commodities. Accordingly, removal of poverty and attainment of self-reliance were accepted as the core objectives of this Plan. It aimed at bringing larger sections of the poor above the poverty line. Also the Plan also gave top priority to bring inflation under control.
• The period of 1989-91 is often described as a period of economic & political instability. Hence there were no Five Year Plans. There were only annual plans.

Outcomes of Five- Year Plans

• Planning in India has mixed results.
• While it has achieved substantial gains in agricultural sector, the success has not so remarkable in generating employment opportunities.
• The rate of industrial growth has been moderate in core sector, but small-scale industries have suffered serious setbacks.
• While we made considerable progress in literacy, female literacy for example, has been steadily improving over the years, from 39 per cent in 1991 to 54 per cent in 2001.
• In the last fifty years (1950-1951 to 2000-2001) since India became a Republic, the national income has increased 7.6 times implying a compound growth rate of 4.2 per cent per annum.
• The per capita income has increased 2.75 times from Rs. 3,718 to Rs. 10,654 (at 1993-94 prices) registering a compound growth rate of 2.1 per cent.

Merits of the five-year plans

• An area of notable performance has been in providing social justice to and empowerment of the marginalized sections of the society like the Scheduled Castes, the Scheduled Tribes, Other Backward Classes and Minorities.
• For Instance, The Special Component Plan for Scheduled Castes is designed to channelize the flow of benefits from the general sectors in Five-Year Plans for the development of SCs.
• Similarly, the Tribal Sub-Plan is a plan within a State Plan meant for welfare and development of tribals.
• Measures for the educational and economic development of minorities have also been initiated. Muslims, Christians. Sikhs, Buddhists.
• Jains and Zoroastrians (Parsis) have been notified as minorities as per the provision under the National Commission of Minorities Act, 1992.

Demerits of five-year plans

• Several limitations of planning of them were inherited in the process of planning like rigidity and other arise due to shortcoming of planning the techniques along with the planners.
• Few problems created due to misdirected planning especially in rural areas.
• It was a time-consuming process with unattained targets.
• The goals and targets in these plans had a false sense of security.
• Collection, analysis and evaluation of information, facts and data involves a lot of expense of time, efforts and money.
• Political change in terms of government from Congress to some other political party, etc.
• There were issues in relation to Labour Union like Strikes, lockouts, agitations
• Less use of advanced technology in its implementation and working.
• Policies of competitors from international parties like Policies of Coca Cola and Pepsi.
• There were changes in demand and prices due to changes in fashion, tastes, income level, demand falls, price falls, etc.

Conclusion

• The quality of a good Development Plan should be tested mainly by examining what is proposed under each of the need.
• It is possible to write a good Development Plan without using any figures, by concentrating on policies which will stimulate an upward movement of economy.
• It is also possible to write a Development Plan which is completely mathematically consistent, but which will achieve nothing, because policies are lacking.