Development Planning In India

The debate around growth has been an important feature of economic planning in India since Independence. This book deals with the wide range of issues related to the country's growth and development between 1951 and 2011, covering the 11 Five Year Plans formulated and implemented during this period, as well as in the decade after that. The author traces the changing nature of planning over time-from rigid state control on economic activities, to reliance on market-based planning in the time of economic reforms. He has dealt with the transition from growth measures in the 1970s, to the use of a mix of growth and redistribution in the 1980s, and the economic reforms and liberalization measures from 1991 onwards, and the inclusive growth we have seen in the twenty-first century. The central theme of the book is to analyse the role that planning played in maximizing the rate of economic growth and in improving the living standards of the people. Considering India's rapidly changing socio-economic environment, many of the issues around growth and development are contentious. The author discusses them here with academic rigour and an insider's insight, thus enabling a fair assessment.

A critical review of India's experience with development planning and its interface with the evolving mode of production and strategy of development, Development Planning in India raises a number of central methodological and institutional questions related to the planning process. Kamal Nayan Kabra dwells particularly on the chasm between planning and formulating and implementing on the one hand and the real stated objectives on the other. Discarding the general tendency to adopt a narrow, economistic approach, Kabra highlights the real-life possibilities and constraints facing a holistic, institutional approach to development planning. He avoids the pitfall of viewing market forces versus plan and centralization versus decentralization as irreconcilable opposites. Instead, the author provides practical suggestions for enriching the development process through effective plan implementation. This could result in a more meaningful multilevel framework to achieve people-centered and autocratic development with a human face. At a time when "plan wariness" seems to be setting in, Development Planning in India serves as a cogent reminder that planning remains crucial in developing countries such as India. At the same time, the content and meaning of the process need to be rethought and fresh impetus provided to overcome the constraints in order to make development planning more relevant to the needs of today. Professors, students, and practitioners in development planning and administration, policy studies, development studies, and economics will find Development Planning in India useful.

Mirroring the complexities of cities and neighborhoods, this volume makes a conscious departure from consensus-oriented public participation to conflict-resolving public participation. In India, planning practice generally involves citizens at different stages of plan-making with a clear purpose of securing a consensus aimed at legitimizing the policy content of a development plan. This book contests and challenges this consensus-oriented view of citizen participation in planning, arguing against the assertion that cities can be represented by a single public interest, for which consensus is sought by planners and policy makers. As such, it replaces consensus-centered rational planning models with Foucauldian and Lacanian models of planning to show that planning is riddled with a variety of spatial conflicts, most of which are resolvable. The book does not downplay differences of class and social and cultural identities of various kinds built on arbitrarily assumed public interest created erroneously by further assuming that the professionally trained planner is unbiased. It moves from theory to practice through case studies, which widens and deepens opportunities for public participation as new arenas beyond the processes of preparation of development plans are highlighted. The book also argues that spaces of public participation in planning are shrinking. For example, city development plans promoted under the erstwhile JNNUM programme and several other neoliberal policy regime initiatives have reduced the quality, as well as the extent of participatory practices in planning. The end result of this is that legally mandated participatory spaces are being used by powerful interests to pursue the neoliberal agenda. The volume is divided into three main parts. The first part deals with the theory and history of public participation and governance in planning in India, and the second presents real-life case studies related to planning at a regional level in order to describe and empirically explore some of the theoretical arguments made in the first. The third section provides analyses of selected case studies at a local level. An introduction and conclusions, along with insights for the future, provide a coherent envelope to the book.

This Book Deals With The Experience Of Development Planning In India Over Last Three And A Half Decades.

With special reference to Sawai Madhopur District of Rajasthan, India.