Two Annual Plans

The Eighth Plan (whose term would have been 1990–95) could not take off due to the ‘fast-changing political situation at the Centre’.79 The pathbreaking and restructuring-oriented suggestions of the Eighth Plan, the sweeping economic reforms ensuing around the world, as well as the fiscal imbalances of the late 1980s were the other important reasons for the delay in the launch of the Eighth Plan. The new government, which assumed power at the centre in June 1991, decided to commence the Eighth Plan for the period 1992–97 and that the fiscals 1990–91 and 1991–92 should be treated as two separate Annual Plans. The two consecutive Annual Plans (1990–92) were formulated within the framework of the approach to the Eighth Plan (1990–

95) with the basic thrust on maximisation of employment and social

transformation.