Five Year Planning of India

·       Five-Year Plans (FYPs) are centralized and integrated national economic programs. 

·       The first Five-Year Plan was implemented in the Soviet Union in 1928.

·       India launched its First Five Year Plan in 1951.

·       The last and Twelfth Plan completed its term in March 2017.

First Five Year Plan (1951–1956)

·       The First Five-year Plan was launched in 1951 which mainly focused in the development of the primary sector.

·       It based on the Harrod–Domar model.

·       The target growth rate was 2.1% annual gross domestic product (GDP) growth.

·       The first five year plan was successful plan and achieved growth rate was 3.6%.

Second Five Year Plan (1956–1961)

·       The Second Plan main focus was on the industrial development of the country.

·       Second Five Year plan followed the Mahalanobis model.

·       The target growth rate was 4.5% and the actual growth rate was 4.27%.

Third Five Year Plan (1961–1966)

·       The Plan was also called as Gadgil Yojna. It was based on John Sandy and Sukhamoy Chakraborty's model.

·       The Third Five-year Plan stressed agriculture and improvement in the production of wheat.

·       During the execution of this plan, India was engaged in the Sino-India war of 1962 and the Indo-Pakistani war of 1965. These wars exposed the weakness in our economy and shifted the focus to the defence industry.

·       The target growth rate was 5.6%, but the actual growth rate was 2.4%.

Plan Holidays (1966–1969)

·       Due to failure of the Third Five Year Plan the government was forced to declare "plan holidays".

·       The main reasons for plan holidays were the war between China and Pakistan, lack of resources and increase in inflation.

·       Three annual plans were drawn during this intervening period from 1966 to 1967, 1967–68, and 1968–69.

·       During this period Equal priority was given to agriculture, its allied activities, and industrial sector.

·       The government of India declared "Devaluation of Rupee" to increase the exports of the country.

Fourth Five Year Plan (1969–1974)

·       There were two main objectives of fourth plan, growth with stability and progressive achievement of self-reliance.

·       The government nationalised 14 major Indian banks and the Green Revolution in India advanced agriculture.

·       In addition, Indo-Pakistan War of 1971 and Bangladesh Liberation War took place.

·       India also performed the Smiling Buddha underground nuclear test (Pokhran-1) in Rajasthan on 18 May 1974.

·       The target growth rate was 5.6%, but the actual growth rate was 3.3%.

Fifth Five Year Plan (1974–1978)

·       The Fifth Five-Year Plan laid stress on employment, poverty alleviation, and self-reliance in agricultural production and defence.

·       The Indian national highway system was introduced and many roads were widened to accommodate the increasing traffic.

·       The twenty-point programme was launched in 1975. It was followed from 1974 to 1979.

·       The Minimum Needs Programme (MNP) was introduced in the first year of the Fifth Five-Year Plan (1974–78). The objective of the programme is to provide certain basic minimum needs and thereby improve the living standards of the people. It is prepared and launched by D.P.Dhar.

·       The target growth rate was 4.4% and the actual growth rate was 4.8%.

·       In 1978 the newly elected Morarji Desai government rejected the plan.

Rolling Plan

·       After the termination of the fifth Five Year Plan, the Rolling Plan came into effect from 1978 to 1990. 

·       Rolling plan consisted of three plans: (1) For the budget of the present year (2) this plan was for a fixed number of years, which may be 3,4 or 5 years (3) Perspective plan for long terms which may be 10, 15 or 20 years. 

·       In 1980, new government rejected the Rolling Plan and a new sixth Five Year Plan was introduced. 

Sixth Five Year Plan (1980–1985)

·       The Sixth Five-Year Plan marked the beginning of economic liberalisation. 

·       The target growth rate was 5.2% and the actual growth rate was 5.7%.

·       The National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development was established on 12 July 1982 by recommendation of the Shivaraman Committee. 

Seventh Five Year Plan (1985–1990)

·       The main objectives of the Plan were to establish growth in areas of increasing economic productivity, production of food grains, and generating employment through "Social Justice".

·       In this plan for the first time, the private sector got priority over the public sector.

·       The target growth rate was 5.0% and the actual growth rate was 6.01%.

Annual Plans (1990–1992)

·       The Eighth Five Year Plan could not take off in 1990 due to the fast changing economic situation at the centre and the years 1990–91 and 1991–92 were treated as Annual Plans.

·       In 1991, India faced a crisis in foreign exchange (forex) reserves. Thus, under pressure, the country took the risk of reforming the socialist economy. India launched India's free market reforms that brought the nearly bankrupt nation back from the edge. It was the beginning of liberalization, privatisation and globalization (LPG) in India.

Eighth Five Year Plan (1992–1997)

·       Modernization of industries was a major highlight of the Eighth Plan. Under this plan, the gradual opening of the Indian economy was undertaken to correct the burgeoning deficit and foreign debt.

·       During this plan, Government launched the New Economic Policy of India.

·       Energy was given priority with 26.6% of the outlay.

·       The target growth rate was 5.6% and the actual growth rate was 6.8%.

·       India became a member of the World Trade Organization on 1 January 1995.

Ninth Five Year Plan (1997–2002)

·       The Ninth Five-Year Plan came after 50 years of Indian Independence. 

·       The Ninth Five-Year Plan focused on the relationship between the rapid economic growth and the quality of life for the people of the country.

·       The main objective of the Ninth Five-Year Plan was to correct historical inequalities and increase the economic growth in the country.

·       The target growth was 7.1% and the actual growth was 6.8%.

Tenth Five Year Plan (2002–2007)

·       The main objectives was to attain 8% GDP growth per year and reduce the poverty rate by 5% by 2007.

·       The plan was expected to follow a regional approach rather than sectoral approach to bring down regional inequalities.

·       The Twenty Point Programme was initially launched in 1975 and was subsequently restructured in 1982 and again on 1986. With the introduction of new policies and programmes it has been finally restructured in 2006 to eradicate poverty and to improve the quality of life of the poor and the under privileged population of the country.

·       Target growth: 8.1% – growth achieved: 7.7%.

Eleventh Five Year Plan (2007–2012)

·       Plan aimed to increase the enrolment in higher education of 18–23 years of age group by 2011–12. It focused on distant education, convergence of formal, non-formal, distant and IT education institutions.

·       Other objective was to increase the growth rate in agriculture, industry, and services to 4%,10% and 9% resp. Provide clean drinking water for all by 2009.

·       The target growth was 9% and the actual growth rate was 8%.

Twelfth Five Year Plan (2012–2017)

·       The government intends to reduce poverty by 10% during the 12th Five-Year Plan.

·       Other objectives of the plan were to create 50 million new work opportunities in the non-farm sector, remove gender and social gap in school enrolment, to reduce malnutrition among children aged 0–3 years, provide electricity to all villages, ensure that 50% of the rural population have accesses to proper drinking water, increase green cover by 1 million hectare every year, provide access to banking services to 90% of households.

·       The Twelfth Five-Year Plan of the Government of India has been decided to achieve a growth rate of 9% but the National Development Council (NDC) on 27 December 2012 approved a growth rate of 8% for the Twelfth Plan.