Miscellaneous - This Day That Age   

dated May 16, 1956 : Report on Second Plan

The report on the Second Five-Year Plan, signed by the Planning Commission, was submitted to Parliament on May 15. With an outlay of Rs. 4,800 crores in the public sector and an estimated investment of Rs. 2,400 crores in the private sector during the period 1956-61, the Plan aims at securing a 25 per cent increase in national income and a rapid industrialisation of the country, accompanied by large expansion of employment opportunities. It seeks "to rebuild rural India, to lay the foundations of industrial progress and to secure to the greatest extent feasible opportunities for weaker and under-privileged sections of our people and the balanced development of all parts of the country." Referring to the great work ahead of the nation, the Planning Commission observes: "For a country whose economic development was long retarded, these are difficult tasks, but given the effort and the sacrifice, they are well within our capacity to achieve." Presenting the report in the Lok Sabha, Prime Minister Nehru stressed the "flexibility" of the Plan. He told the House: "While the Plan is there for the House to consider and, when approved, for the country to act upon, it is not a rigid Five-Year Plan. It is proposed to consider it from time to time and in effect to have annual plans and vary it here and there as experience dictates and as conditions necessitate, so that while we have a Five-Year Plan, it is going to be considered annually and, where necessary, revised."

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