ABSTRACT
India's Third Five-Year Plan is undergoing the most serious of the many crises that have punctuated the planning process since 1956, when the ‘overfulfilment’ of First Plan raised so many false hopes. It may be that the government will extricate itself, with the help of massive foreign assistance, as it did from the previous major crisis of 1957-8. The general index, however, conceals serious shortfalls in certain sectors vital for future progress, such as steel, which increased its production to only 2·4 million tons as against a plan target of 4·3 million. Such a pattern is a natural product of the Indian tendency to treat the five-year period operationally rather than conceptually. A leading official of the Commission once tried to persuade that setting unrealistically high targets stimulated efforts which otherwise would not be forthcoming. This seems extremely doubtful, but one can hardly doubt that the failure to achieve such targets is a potent cause of apathy and cynicism.
