4.4 ndian onom
to continue with their progress. Second is industrial planning, irrigation planning,
the idea of the natural resources which are road planning, house planning, etc.
available. Resources (i.e., natural as well Simply said, the art of achieving any kind
as human) could be of indigenous origin of goal by the use of the resources we have is the
or exogenous. Most of the countries process of planning. We may cite a very general
doing planning tried to utilise their example—students of a class are able to join the
indigenous resources, yet some tried to
class at the right time coming from different places
tap the exogenous resources too, taking
of their stay. How they are able to do so? All of
leverage of their diplomatic acumen.
them must be planning their time in such a way
For example, the first country going for
that they are able to join the class at the same
national planning, i.e., Soviet Union,
leveraged resources available in the East time though their places of residence are not at an
European countries. India also used equal distance from the class. All might be having
exogenous resources for her development their own ways of time planning—some might be
planning wherever it was necessary and having bed-tea, some might not, some might be
possible to tap.7 having breakfast at their place, yet others might
By the 1950s, planning had emerged as a think to take their breakfast in the college canteen,
method or tool of utilising resources to achieve etc.
any kind of goals for policymakers, around the It means that even if we are not consciously
world: planning or have not announced it as yet, we are
(i) Trying to achieve a particular size of always planning our days. Same is correct in the
family for different countries came to be case of countries. Many countries announced that
known as family planning. they will be planned economies, yet some others
(ii) The process of providing suitable physical didn’t go for any such policy announcements. The
and social infrastructure for the erstwhile soviet Union, Poland, China, France, India are
or the upcoming urban areas came to be examples of the former category while the USA,
known as town/urban planning. Canada, Mexico fall in the latter category.8 But
(iii) A country trying to optimise the use here we are concerned with the conscious process
of its revenues for different categories of planning. There will be some methods, some
of expenditures came to be known as tools and types of planning emerging through
financial planning. Financial planning time as different countries will start their processes
is more popularly known as budgeting. of planning.
Every budget, be it of the government
or of the private sector is nothing but an orIgIn and expansIon of plannIng
excercises in financial planning.
(iv) Similarly, at the macro and micro Planning as a method of achieving faster economic
levels, there might be any number of progress. It has been tried by different countries at
planning processes—agricultural planning, different times and at different levels. We may see
them as under:
7. Many of the PSUs in the 1950s and the early 1960s
were not only set up with natural resources (capital as . hough the SA was the first to go for planning, ut
well as machines) from USSR, Germany, etc., but even at the regional level (Tennessee Valley Authority,
the human resource was also tapped from there for few 1916)—it never announced its intention for national
years. planning.