Which Five Year Plan of India focused on rapid industrialization based growth process ?
- (a)First Five Year Plan
- (b)Second Five Year Plan
- (c)Fifth Five Year Plan
- (d)Seventh Five Year Plan
Correct — B, Second Five Year Plan. The Second Plan (1956-61) is the plan built around rapid industrialisation and the growth of the public sector. It was drawn on the model associated with the statistician P. C. Mahalanobis, which argued that a poor country grows fastest by first building the industries that make machines, and only then the industries that make consumer goods. The plan's showpiece investments were the three public-sector steel plants at Bhilai, Durgapur and Rourkela. It targeted 4.5 per cent growth and achieved about 4.27 per cent.
- (a)First Five Year Plan — The First Plan (1951-56) was an agriculture-and-rehabilitation plan, framed on a modified Harrod-Domar model to repair an economy strained by Partition and food shortage. Irrigation and power, not heavy industry, took the largest share. It targeted 2.1 per cent growth and achieved about 3.6 per cent.
- (c)Fifth Five Year Plan — The Fifth Plan (1974-78) was the poverty-and-employment plan — the one carrying the 'Garibi Hatao' call, with self-reliance as its second theme. It is remembered for the minimum-needs approach, not for launching an industrialisation drive.
- (d)Seventh Five Year Plan — The Seventh Plan (1985-90) worked on raising industrial PRODUCTIVITY through technology upgrading, alongside social justice and the goal of self-sustaining growth by 2000. Industry was already built by then; this plan modernised it rather than creating the base.
India's Five Year Plans each carried a headline strategy, and examiners test the plan-to-strategy pairing rather than the dates. The Second Plan is the industrialisation plan: its logic, from P. C. Mahalanobis, was that investment should go first into capital goods — steel, machine tools, heavy electricals — because those industries then produce the equipment every other sector needs. Because private capital was thin, the state took on this investment directly, which is why the Second Plan is also the plan that expanded the public sector.
Fix one label to each plan and this whole family of questions collapses. First equals agriculture and rehabilitation; Second equals heavy industry and the public sector; Fifth equals poverty removal; Seventh equals productivity and modernisation. The Fifth Plan tempts candidates because 'Garibi Hatao' feels like a big economic push, and the Seventh tempts because it does mention industry — but the Seventh raises the efficiency of an existing industrial base rather than creating one. Note also that the stem's phrasing, 'rapid industrialization based growth process', is the paper's own wording; the Second Plan document's language was 'rapid industrialisation'.
- The Second Five Year Plan ran from 1956 to 1961 and used the Mahalanobis model to allocate investment.
- Its heavy-industry programme included the public-sector steel plants at Bhilai, Durgapur and Rourkela.
- The Second Plan targeted 4.5 per cent growth and achieved about 4.27 per cent.
- The First Plan (1951-56) used a modified Harrod-Domar model and targeted 2.1 per cent growth, achieving about 3.6 per cent.
- Mixing up the Second Plan (builds heavy industry) with the Seventh Plan (raises industrial productivity).
- Attaching 'Garibi Hatao' to the Fourth Plan instead of the Fifth.
- Quoting plan targets as achievements — the Second Plan targeted 4.5 per cent but achieved about 4.27 per cent.
Asked either as a straight plan-to-theme pick like this one, or as a statement pair where one statement gives a plan the wrong strategy.
Consider the following statements regarding Indian Planning : 1. The Second Five-Year Plan emphasised on the establishment of heavy industries. 2. The Third Five-Year Plan introduced the concept of import substitution as a strategy for industrialisation. Which of the statements given above is/are correct ?
- (a) 1 only
- (b) 2 only
- (c) Both 1 and 2
- (d) Neither 1 nor 2
Answer(a) 1 only
UPSC certified the same fact in statement form — the Second Plan is the heavy-industry plan. It then added the harder half: import substitution was already the Second Plan's strategy, so the Third Plan did not 'introduce' it.
The call for Garibi Hatao was incorporated in
- (a) Fourth Five Year Plan
- (b) Fifth Five Year Plan
- (c) Sixth Five Year Plan
- (d) Seventh Five Year Plan
Answer(b) Fifth Five Year Plan
The mirror image of this item — NDA asked for the plan behind the poverty slogan, and here it asks for the plan behind industrialisation. Learn the four labels together and both are one recall.
- practice — not a real PYQ
The Second Five Year Plan of India was based on the model developed by
- (a)R. F. Harrod and E. Domar
- (b)P. C. Mahalanobis
- (c)V. K. R. V. Rao
- (d)D. R. Gadgil
Answer(b) P. C. Mahalanobis — his allocation model put investment into capital-goods industries first.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Which one of the following steel plants was NOT set up under the Second Five Year Plan?
- (a)Bhilai
- (b)Rourkela
- (c)Durgapur
- (d)Jamshedpur
Answer(d) Jamshedpur — the Tata works there is a private plant that long predates the Plans; Bhilai, Rourkela and Durgapur were the Second Plan's public-sector steel projects.