🌍CBSE Class 12 Political Science- Chapter-3 Politics of Planned Development-Notes📝

Planning

Planning means planning the future for the best use of available resources. Through planning, increase in production, increase in employment opportunities and economic stability etc. are achieved.

Development

‘Development’ refers to process of living standard and attaining an economic level of industrial production. Immediately after independence, the Indian Government took up the task of poverty attenuation, social and economic redistribution and development of agriculture.

Political Contestation

• In a democracy or in a democratic country the final decision must be a political decision, taken by people’s representatives who are in touch with the feelings of the people.
• After independence, everyone agreed that the development of India will take place by, economic growth along with social and economic justice.
• There was disagreement on the kind of role that the government must play in ensuring economic growth with justice.

Ideas of Development

• Any discussion on development is bound to generate contradictions, conflicts and arguments.
• ‘Development’ was about becoming more ‘modern’ and modern was about becoming more like the industrialized countries of the West.
• Modernization was associated with the ideas of growth, material progress and scientific rationality.

Planning

• Before independence, the need of planning was felt to set up National Planning Committee in 1930’s to collect data and setting aims as well as opted for five-year plans and budget.
• Planning is a systematic regulation of purposeful activity to achieve national goals. India was inspired by USSR for planning to provide basic necessities of life i.e. advanced education, medical care and technological skills.
• Despite the various differences, there was a consensus on one point: that development could not be left to private sectors. So, there was the need for the government to develop a design or plan for development.
• The Planning Commission of India was set up in 1950 as an ‘Extra-constitutional body’ along with Prime Minister as its chairman, ministers in charge and some other members to be advisory in nature. It helps to reduce the wastage of time and increase the per capita income.

The Early Initiatives

• The draft of the First Five Year Plan and then the actual Plan Document, released in December 1951, generated a lot of excitement in the country.
• The excitement with planning reached its peak with the launching of the Second Five Year Plan in 1956 and continued somewhat till the Third Five Year Plan in 1961.
• The First Five Year Plan (1951-1956) addressed mainly the agrarian sector including investment in dams and irrigation.
• The Second Five Year Plan (1956-1961) focused on the development of the public sector and “Rapid Industrialization”.
• The Third Five Year Plan (1961-1966) stressed agriculture and improvement in the production of wheat, but the brief Sino-Indian War of 1962 exposed weaknesses in the economy and shifted the focus towards the defense industry and the Indian Army.

The First Five Year Plan (1951-1956)

• The First Five Year Plan sought to get the country’s economy out of the cycle of poverty. K.N. Raj, a young economist involved in drafting the plan, argued that India should ‘hasten slowly’ for the first two decades as a fast rate of development might endanger democracy.
• The First Five Year Plan addressed, mainly, the agrarian sector including investment in dams and irrigation. Agricultural sector was hit hardest by Partition and needed urgent attention.
• It focused on land reforms as the key to the country’s development

Rapid Industrialization (1956-1961)

• The second Five Year Plan stressed on heavy industries. It was drafted by a team of economists and planners under the leadership of PC Mahalanobis.
• If the first plan had preached patience, the second wanted to bring about quick structural transformation
• The government imposed substantial tariffs on imports in order to protect domestic industries. Such protected environment helped both public and private sector industries to grow.
• It, however, had its problems as well. India was technologically backward, so it had to spend precious foreign exchange to buy technology from the global market.

Key Controversies
The strategy of development followed in the early years raised several important questions.

Agriculture Versus Industry

1. After first two plans agriculture could not develop at appreciable level. Gandhian economist J.C. Kumarappa proposed an alternative blueprint that put greater emphasis on rural industrialization.
2. Some others thought that without a drastic increase in industrial production, there could be no escape from the cycle of poverty.

Public Versus Private Sector

1. India adopted ‘mixed economy’ where elements of both public and private sector exist together.
2. Critics argued that the planners refused to provide the private sector with enough space and the stimulus to grow. The enlarged public sector produced powerful vested interests that created enough hurdles for private capital.
3. Much of the agriculture, trade and industry were left in private hands.
4. The state controlled key heavy industries, provided industrial infrastructure, regulated trade and made some crucial interventions in agriculture.

Major Outcomes

• The early initiatives for planned development were at best realizing the goals of economic development of the country and well-being of all its citizens.
• Those who benefitted from unequal development soon became politically powerful and made it even more difficult to move in the desired direction.

There were three major outcomes.

1. Economic Foundations
2. During first two plan foundations of India’s future economic growth were laid. Mega dams like Bhakhra-Nangal and Hirakund for irrigation and power generation were built.
3. Some of the heavy industries in the public sector-steel plants, oil refineries, manufacturing units, defense production etc.-were started during this period.
4. Infrastructure for transport and communication was improved substantially.
5. Land Reforms
6. Colonial system of Zamindari was abolished.
7. Attempts at consolidation of land-bringing small pieces of land together in one place was initiated.
8. But the other two components of land reforms were much less successful.
9. Though the laws were made to put an upper limit or ‘ceiling’ to how much agricultural land one person could own, people with excess land managed to evade the law.
10. Similarly, the tenants who worked on someone else’s land were given greater legal security against eviction, but this provision was rarely implemented.

• Green and White Revolution
• In the face of the prevailing food-crisis, the country was clearly vulnerable to external pressures and dependent on food aid, mainly from the United States.
• During 1960s the government offered high-yielding variety seeds, fertilizers, pesticides and better irrigation at highly subsidised prices. This was termed as Green Revolution.
• The rich peasants and the large land holders were the major beneficiaries of this.
• Some regions like Punjab, Haryana, and Western Uttar Pradesh became agriculturally prosperous, while others remained backward.
• The green revolution had two other effects: –
• One was that in many parts, the stark contrast between the poor peasantry and the landlords produced conditions favourable for leftwing organisations to organize the poor peasants.
• Secondly, the green revolution also resulted in the rise of what is called the middle peasant sections.
• In 1970 the rural development programme called Operation Flood was started.
• Operation flood organized cooperatives of milk producers into a nationwide milk grid, with the purpose of increasing milk production.
• This was termed as White Revolution. Verghese Kurien is known as ‘Milkman of India.’

Later Developments

• The period from 1967 onwards witnessed many new restrictions on private industry. Fourteen private banks were nationalized.
• Between 1950 and 1980 the Indian economy grew at a sluggish per annum rate of 3 to 3.5%.
• The presence of inefficiency, corruption etc. forced people to lose faith in country’s economic system thus it results in decreasing the significance of state in India’s economy from 1980s onwards.

NITI Aayog

• After independence, a Planning Commission based on socialist model was formed for the planned development of India.
• But in the era of globalization, especially in the 21st century, it was becoming ineffective and irrelevant, particularly in terms of coping with the pressing challenges of development.
• Hence, during his Independence Day speech on 15 August 2014, Prime Minister Narendra Modi talked about the abolition of the Planning Commission.
• NITI Aayog was constituted in place of Planning Commission on 1 January 2015 with the objective of providing the necessary and technical advice to the Union Government regarding policy making at the Central and State levels.
• The Prime Minister of India is the ex-officio Chairman of NITI Aayog and he appoints the Vice Chairperson of NITI Aayog.
• The first Vice Chairperson of NITI Aayog was Arvind Panagariya.
• To harmonize the interests of national security and economic policy and to prepare strategic and long-term framework of policy and program, NITI Aayog acts as a think tank of the Union Government.
• By adopting a ‘Bottom-Up Approach’, the NITI Aayog acts in the spirit of cooperative federalism as it ensures equal participation of all states in the country.

WORDS THAT MATTER

• Planning: A systematic regulation to optimum use of resources and to reduce wastage of time.
• Capitalist Economy: The economy in which private sectors are prioritized in place of social welfare.
• Socialist Economy: It aims at the public sector and planning with the aim to establish egalitarian society.
• Mixed Economy: The economy in which the private and the public sector both co-exist.
• Bombay Plan: It was a joint proposal of a section of big industrialists for setting up a planned economy in the country to be drafted in 1944.
• Planning Commission: It is an ‘extra-constitutional body’ to make plans for the country to set up in March 1950 with the Prime Minister as its Chairman.
• Plan Budget: It is the amount that is spent on a five-year basis as per the priorities fixed by the plan.

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