Indian Planning : An Introduction

After independence the major problem was how to tackle the problems of an under developed economy. As earlt as 1938, Jawaharlal Nehru was made the chairman of a national planning committee which was constituted by the Indian National Congress. The Faizapur session of the Congress in 1937 was marked by the emergence of a left wing group in the Congress. They were inspired by the experience of planned industrialization of the Soviet Union.

By this time, the necessity of planned economic development had been more or less accepted by all sections of Indian society. The first systematic effort in this direction was the Bombay Plan in 1944. It was formulated by eight leading industrialists of India headed by J.R.D.Tata.The planning commission was set up in March 1950 and thus started the planning process of India.