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Abstract
The function of planning in a predominantly market-driven economy has to be symptomatic, co-coordinative and authoritarian. That provides the good reason for India's Planning Commission to engage in preparing development plans for the economy periodically even after liberalisation. However as it can't control investment in the private sector so such planning can at best be at least indicative. So the five year plans are now seek to provide an indicative path of development by setting out the imperatives for alternative growth scenarios in terms of macro-variables. It is still be necessary for planning commission to integrate and coordinate the plans of different ministries and undertakings of the central government, and bring them in line with the medium and long-term goals while keeping within the budget constraint. At the same time, the system of transfers from the centre needs to be reformed. There should be some rethinking on the relative roles of the planning commission and the finance commission. In this paper an attempt has been made to analyze the inter relation between economic development and directive roles of planning process in India.
Keywords: Economic development, liberalization, indicative planning and Planning Policy
JEL Classification: O16, F15, B 20, O21
(ProQuest: ... denotes formulae omitted.)
Introduction
Development planning have played a pivotal role in successful upliftment of millions people out of poverty especially in South Asian countries including India. In exception, in many transitional countries, planned development process sometimes hinders development standards which may be due to violation of the basic rules of the development process and may be over emphasis on planning apparatus. However, in case of contemporary era, the main problem is to balance market economy with the public policy. Even though this problem may not crop up in the early stage of the development but with the expanding market frontiers and the pace towards extreme capitalism, the imbalance in between two sides are seemed to be acute and sometimes question the authenticity of the planning process. In this regard, after gaining independence from British colonial rule, South Asian embraced a development strategy whose key components formed the substance of development planning process. However, these countries have changed their development process from inward looking policy to an outward one, especially following the process...