NDA (II) 2022 General Ability Test · Question 52 of 150

Correct — C, 4-1-2-3. The National Planning Committee comes first and by a wide margin — the Congress set it up in 1938, nine years before independence, with Jawaharlal Nehru as its chairman. The Planning Commission followed on 15 March 1950, created by a resolution of the Union Cabinet rather than by the Constitution or a statute. The National Development Council was set up on 6 August 1952 to bring the states into the planning process, and it held its first meeting on 8 and 9 November 1952. Approval of the First Five-Year Plan by the NDC therefore has to come last, because a body created in August 1952 cannot have approved anything before it existed. That fixes the order as 4-1-2-3.

• (a)1-2-3-4 — It places the National Planning Committee last. That committee dates from 1938 and is the earliest of the four events by twelve years, so it can only come first.
• (b)2-1-3-4 — It puts the National Development Council (August 1952) ahead of the Planning Commission (March 1950), and again strands the 1938 National Planning Committee at the end.
• (d)1-4-2-3 — It gets the last two events right but opens with the Planning Commission of 1950 and drops the National Planning Committee to second place. The 1938 committee predates the Planning Commission, so it cannot sit second.

Indian planning did not begin in 1950. Through the 1930s and 1940s several blueprints were drawn up — the Congress-appointed National Planning Committee of 1938 chaired by Nehru, and later the Bombay Plan, the People's Plan and the Gandhian Plan. After independence the state built formal machinery around the idea, first the Planning Commission and then the National Development Council, which gave chief ministers a seat at the table because agriculture, irrigation, health and land were state subjects.

Two anchors solve the whole item without remembering all four dates. Anything constituted before 1947 must come first, which pins the National Planning Committee at position one and eliminates three options straight away. Then note that event 3 is logically dependent on event 2 — the NDC cannot approve a plan before the NDC exists. As of the September 2022 exam the Planning Commission itself was already history, having been replaced by NITI Aayog on 1 January 2015, so the question is testing a historical sequence rather than the live institutional map.

• The National Planning Committee was constituted in 1938 under the Congress, with Jawaharlal Nehru as its chairman.
• The Planning Commission was set up on 15 March 1950 by an executive resolution of the Union Cabinet — it was neither a constitutional nor a statutory body.
• The National Development Council was set up on 6 August 1952 and held its first meeting on 8 and 9 November 1952.
• The First Five-Year Plan was launched in 1951, so its approval by the NDC necessarily came after the Council was created in August 1952.

• Reading the numeral '1' in the list as 'earliest' — the numbering of the events is arbitrary.
• Treating the launch of the First Plan in 1951 as the same event as its approval by the NDC.

A chronology-sequencing item in which one entry is pre-independence and one entry is logically dependent on another.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Planning Commission of India was set up in 1950 by

  • (a)an amendment to the Constitution
  • (b)an Act of Parliament
  • (c)a resolution of the Union Cabinet
  • (d)an order of the Supreme Court

  Answer(c) a resolution of the Union Cabinet — it was an executive body, neither constitutional nor statutory.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The National Development Council was set up in the year

  • (a)1950
  • (b)1951
  • (c)1952
  • (d)1956

  Answer(c) 1952 — it was constituted on 6 August 1952.