UKPSC Prelims 2025 General Studies Paper-I · Question 74 of 149

Correct — C, Jawaharlal Nehru.

The Indian National Congress constituted the National Planning Committee in 1938 and named Jawaharlal Nehru its chairman. It followed a conference of the industries ministers of the Congress-run provincial governments held at Delhi in October 1938.

Nehru took the chair as a Congress leader, not as a minister. The Congress was drafting an economic programme for an independence it expected to win.

The idea to carry away: planning in India began as a Congress exercise under Nehru in 1938, twelve years before the Planning Commission of 1950, which he also headed.

• (a)
  Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel — In these years Patel's work lay in the Congress organisation and in supervising the Congress provincial ministries formed after the 1937 elections, not in drafting an economic plan.

  His famous chair came a decade later, in the Constituent Assembly: he headed the Advisory Committee on Fundamental Rights, Minorities and Tribal and Excluded Areas, whose reports shaped the fundamental rights and minority safeguards.

• (b)
  Rajendra Prasad — Prasad had been Congress President in 1934 and took the office again in 1939 after Subhas Chandra Bose resigned, but the planning chair was not his.

  He is the right answer to who presided over the Constituent Assembly of India, elected its permanent President in December 1946 and in the chair until the Constitution was adopted. He then became independent India's first President.

• (d)
  J. B. Kripalani — Kripalani's role from the mid-1930s was organisational — he served long years as General Secretary of the All India Congress Committee, running the party machine rather than a policy body.

  He is the right answer to who was Congress President when India became independent in August 1947, elected at the Meerut session in November 1946, resigning the office in November 1947.

The National Planning Committee was the Indian National Congress's attempt, from 1938, to draw up an economic plan for a country it did not yet govern.

It brought together scientists, economists, industrialists and Congress politicians under a chairman drawn from the Congress leadership, and worked through sub-committees on subjects such as industry, agriculture, power and transport.

• The Indian National Congress constituted the National Planning Committee in 1938 with Jawaharlal Nehru as its chairman.
• K. T. Shah served as the committee's secretary.
• Subhas Chandra Bose was Congress President in 1938; the committee followed a Delhi conference of the industries ministers of Congress provinces in October 1938.
• The committee worked through subject sub-committees covering areas such as industry, agriculture, power and transport.
• The Second World War and the imprisonment of Nehru and other members interrupted its work, and its reports appeared largely after independence.
• Nehru headed the Planning Commission, created by a Government of India resolution in March 1950, as Prime Minister and ex-officio chairman.
• M. Visvesvaraya's 'Planned Economy for India' (1934) argued for planning before the committee; the Bombay Plan, drafted by leading industrialists, followed in 1944.

• The stem names the Congress and the year 1938. The Congress presidency of that year (Subhas Chandra Bose) and the committee's chairmanship (Nehru) were separate posts held by different men.
• K. T. Shah is the other name closely tied to this committee — as its secretary, not as its chairman.
• Patel and Rajendra Prasad are firmly attached to chairmanships of the Constituent Assembly years; carrying those back to a 1938 party committee misplaces them by about a decade.
• The 1938 committee was a Congress initiative. Reading it as an official government planning body slides it into the Planning Commission of 1950.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Who served as the Secretary of the National Planning Committee set up by the Indian National Congress in 1938?

  • (a)M. Visvesvaraya
  • (b)K. T. Shah
  • (c)John Matthai
  • (d)V. K. R. V. Rao
  Answerb — K. T. Shah was the committee's secretary, working under Nehru as chairman.

  Visvesvaraya argued the case for planning in 'Planned Economy for India' (1934), before the committee existed.

  John Matthai was among the industrialists behind the 1944 Bombay Plan and later Union Finance Minister.

  V. K. R. V. Rao was an economist known for national-income work and for founding the Delhi School of Economics.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The National Planning Committee took shape in 1938, when the President of the Indian National Congress was:

  • (a)Jawaharlal Nehru
  • (b)Subhas Chandra Bose
  • (c)Rajendra Prasad
  • (d)Abul Kalam Azad
  Answerb — Subhas Chandra Bose was Congress President in 1938, elected at the Haripura session, and the planning committee took shape during his term.

  Nehru had held the presidency in 1936 and 1937, and in 1938 chaired the committee rather than the Congress. Rajendra Prasad took the presidency in 1939, after Bose resigned. Azad held the office from 1940 through the war years.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Planning Commission, created by a Government of India resolution in March 1950, had which of the following as its ex-officio Chairman?

  • (a)The President of India
  • (b)The Prime Minister
  • (c)The Union Finance Minister
  • (d)The Union Home Minister
  Answerb — the Prime Minister was the Commission's ex-officio Chairman, so Nehru headed it, as he had headed the Congress's 1938 committee.

  The Commission was created by an executive resolution rather than by the Constitution or a statute, and that resolution of 15 March 1950 provided for the Prime Minister as its ex-officio Chairman.

  The Finance and Home portfolios sat inside that government, but the chair went with the Prime Minister's office.