INTRODUCTION‌

I

t was the Soviet Union which explored and adopted national planning for the first time in the world. After a prolonged period of debate and discussion, the First Soviet Plan commenced in 1928 for a period of five

years. But the world outside was not fully aware of the modus operandi of development planning till the 1930s. It was the exodus1 of the east European economists to Britain and the United States in the 1920s and 1930s that made the world aware as to what economic/national planning was all about. The whole lot of colonial world and the democracies of the time were fascinated by the idea of planning as an instrument of economic progress. The nationalist leaders with socialistic inclination of the erstwhile British colonies were more influenced by the idea of economic planning. The whole decade of the 1930s is the period in the Indian history when we see nationalists, capitalists, socialists, democrats and academicians advocating for the need of economic planning in India at one point or the other.2‌

Independent India was thus destined to be a planned economy. The economic history of India is nothing but the history of planning.3 Even if the so-called economic reforms started in 1991–92, all the humble suggestions regarding the contours of reforms were very much outlined by the Planning Commission by then.4 Once the reforms commenced, the think tank started outlining the major future direction for further plans.5 Going through the history of planning in India is a highly educational trip in itself—for though the Planning Commission has been a political body, it never hesitated in pointing out good economics time and again. Let us therefore look into the unfolding of the planning process in India.‌‌