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This article provides information about the path of development taken by India since independence:
The path to be followed for the development of any society cannot be easily determined and it requires a great deal of planning before deciding on that. In independent India, planning derives its objectives from the Directive Principles of State Policy as outlined in the Indian Constitution.
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It says, “The State shall strive to promote the welfare of the people by securing and protecting, as effectively as it may, a social order in which justice — social, economic and political — shall inform all the institutions of national life”.
A lot of planning is required to accompany any kind of development. In fact, planning itself means, “securing a particular objective or a set of objectives”. In the context of development, the sphere of planning is economic as well as social. Though the Planning Commission was set up in 1950 to prepare the blueprint of development, India had started making preparations for it even before Independence when the governments were formed in various provinces in 1937 under Government of India Act, 1935. During the freedom struggle a National Planning Committee was constituted by the Congress with Jawaharlal Nehru as Chairman, with 29 sub-committees to work on different areas.
The Committee recommended to the State to play a vital role in the development of infrastructure and in the setting up of basic industries under its aegis, to promote the growth of cottage and village industries under protection, and to abolish all intermediary interests in land with a view to unleashing the forces of growth.
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It hoped to raise national income by two to three times in a span of 10 years with a view to providing a balanced diet having calorific value of 2400-2800 units to an adult worker, 30 yards of cloth per person and housing with at least 100 square feet per capita. Industrialisation with emphasis on promotion of heavy engineering and machine-making industries, electric power and scientific research institutes, accommodation of cottage and small-scale industries, the dominant role of the state and of public sector in industrial development, and national self- sufficiency to the extent possible were held out as the major planks of the policy.
In the year 1938, National Planning Committee of the Indian National Congress, Jawaharlal Nehru as Chairman, had completed its work on a plan for the development of post-independence India. Businessmen published their own plan, the so-called “Bombay Plan,” in 1944. The signatories include GD. Birla, with wide interests in the textiles, jute and insurance; J.R.D. Tata, with interests in iron and steel and internal air lines; and Kasthuribai Lalbai, with interests in textiles and shipping.
It provided the vision that guided Nehru in formulating the industrial and agrarian policy of India after independence. It carried a vision to develop India industrially and militarily to become a big power. It affirmed that practically every aspect of economic life would have to be rigorously controlled by the Government.
The Indian Federation of Labour under the leadership of M. N. Roy also put out its own plan, the “People’s Plan”, also in 1944. In which primacy was given to employment generation through improvement in agriculture and developments of small-scale industry. Mahatma Gandhi and his disciples had their own “Gandhian Plan.”
All had eradication of poverty as their overarching objective. The Gandhian approach to development focused on the village level economy. Such an approach wanted agriculture to be the mainstay of the Indian economy and envisaged the creation of self-sufficient village units. Except the Gandhians, the others viewed state-promoted industrialisation as the means for achieving the objective and central planning as essential for this purpose.