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Kerala PSC Indian Economy Book Study Materials Page 78
Book's First Page4.2 ndian onom and income distribution, in accordance with IntroductIon social objectives set by bodies representative of the In order not to limit the discussion on economic nation. Such planning is not only to be considered planning to just an academic exercise, we need to from the point of view of economics, and raising discuss it taking real life examples from different of the standard of living, but must include cultural economies. Without a historical background to and spiritual values, and the human side of life.”1 planning, we would not be able to understand the By the late 1930s, there was an almost meaning and role of planning in India. This small political consensus that independent India will chapter intends to introduce the reader to all the be a planned economy. As India commenced whats, hows and whys of the concept of economic economic planning by the early 1950s, the planning with due recourse to the experiments by planning commission of India also went on to different countries from time to time, including define planning. According to the Planning India. It could also be considered a theoretical Commission, “Planning involves the acceptance backgrounder for the next chapter, Planning in of a clearly defined system of objectives in terms India. of which to frame overall policies. It also involves the formation of a strategy for promoting the defInItIon realisation of ends defined. Planning is essentially an attempt at working out a rational solution of A number of definitions have been forwarded by problems, an attempt to coordinate means and different economists from time to time since the ends; it is thus different from the traditional term ‘planning’ entered the domain of economics. hit-and-miss methods by which reforms and To make us develop a clear understanding of reconstruction are often undertaken”.2 planning, we need to see only a few of them which In the post-War period, a large number of will enable us to draw out a working definition the newly independent countries were attracted that fits contemporary time. towards planning. Many new forces of change A large number of economists and experts kept refining the very idea of planning due to the have agreed that perhaps the best definition is compulsive necessities of industrialisation or the given by H. D. Dickinson, according to whom, issue of sustainability of the development process. economic planning is, “the making of major But to carry forward our discussion, we need a economic decisions—what and how much is to working as well as a contemporary definition be produced and to whom it is to be allocated by of planning. We may define it as a process of the conscious decision of a determinate authority, realising well-defined goals by optimum utilisation on the basis of a comprehensive survey of the of the available resources.3 While doing economic economic system as a whole.” planning the government sets developmental It was the National Planning Committee, objectives and attempts to deliberately coordinate set up in 1938 by the Indian National Congress 1. S. R. Maheshwari, A Dictionary of Public which, for the first time, tried to define planning Administration, orient longman, New Delhi, 2002, (in 1940, though, its final report was published in p. 371. 1949) in India. It could be considered the broadest 2. Planning Commission, First Five Year Plan (1951–56), possible definition of planning: “Planning, under Government of India, New Delhi, 1991, p. 7. a democratic system, may be defined as the 3. After the emergence of the concept of Sustainable Development (1987) experts across the world started technical coordination, by disinterested experts using the term ‘optimum’ in place of the hitherto used of consumption, production, investment, trade, term ‘maximum’.