Indian five-year plan endorsed

Press, 13 November 1985, Page 29

Indian five-year plan endorsed

NZPA-Reuter New Delhi

India’s top economic policy-making body unanimously endorsed an ambitious $260 billion plan to fight poverty and boost agricultural and industrial output over the next five years. The country’s Seventh Five-Year Plan, for 19851990, was approved at the end of a two-day National Development Council meeting, India’s Planning Commission’s deputy chairman, Mr Manmohan Singh, told reporters. Mr Singh said the Prime Minister, Mr Gandhi, told the meeting India was standing by its traditional planning policy of putting the fight against poverty first.

But Mr Gandhi, who has emerged as a champion of modernisation since he took office a year ago, said this should not stop India acquiring basic technology, particularly in agriculture.

Mr Gandhi stressed the role of the public sector in India’s development and the need for India to become self-reliant, but added that the country should not shy away from imports if they were more economical than domestic products. <1 ■ Chief Ministers from Op-position-ruled states at the meeting raised only minor objections to the plan, Mr Singh said. A summary of the plan said it aimed to achieve an average annual economic growth rate of 5 per cent for the five years to March, 1990. The immediate goals were to accelerate growth in food-grains production, increase employment and raise productivity. The plan aimed to slash the proportion of India’s population living below the poverty line from 37 per cent in 1984/85 to 26 per cent in 1989/90, with, most of the improvement in rural areas.