Q.State the four objectives of economic planning adopted by India after Independence.
After Independence, India's planners identified four broad, enduring objectives that guided the Five Year Plans, and these are consistently cited across Indian planning literature.
The first objective, growth, meant steadily increasing the total output and income of the economy over time, moving it away from the stagnation of the colonial period. The second, modernisation, meant shifting the structure of production toward more modern technology and methods, and diversifying the occupational structure beyond overwhelming dependence on traditional agriculture. The third, self-reliance, meant reducing India's dependence on foreign aid, foreign goods and foreign capital by building domestic capacity to meet the country's own needs — a natural priority given the colonial experience of dependence on an outside power. The fourth, equity or social justice, meant ensuring that the benefits of economic growth were distributed reasonably across different sections of society, rather than being concentrated in the hands of a few, given the widespread poverty and inequality inherited at Independence.
These four objectives were not pursued in isolation from one another; different Five Year Plans placed different degrees of emphasis on each, but all four remained the standard reference points against which India's planning process is evaluated.
The four objectives of Indian economic planning are growth, modernisation, self-reliance, and equity (social justice).
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