The early fifties saw the dawn of planning in India, a process which was designed to realise the aspirations of the newly independent nation. Those were the days of great enthusiasm and great hope. In this critical review of India’s experience with development planning and its interface with the evolving modes of production and strategy of development, Kamal Nayan Kabra takes stock of the situation: what we have done right, where we have gone wrong, and what needs to be done in the years to come. After appraising the process of development planning in India, Professor Kabra goes on to provide lucid expositions of the process of planning and of the hurdles (in many instances, the eventual failures) that India has had to face while walking the difficult terrain of plan implementation. He provides practical suggestions for enriching the development process through effective plan implementation accompained by an enhanced availability of institutional options. This is with a view to developing a more meaningful multi-level framework to achieve people-centred and autocentric development with a human face. Discarding the general tendency to adopt a narrow, economic approach, Professor Kabra highlights the concrete possibilities as also the constraints facing a holistic, institutional approach to development planning. On the basis of a critical survey of the theory of development planning, he lays great emphasis on what he calls the integrated social science approach in the Indian context. At a time when ‘plan-weariness’ seems to be setting in, this book serves as a cogent reminder that planning remains crucial in a developing country such as India. At the same time, as the author maintains, the context and meaning of the process must be rethought and a fresh impetus provided to overcome the constraints so as to make development planning more relevant to the current and emerging realities.
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