Planning in perspective

Until recently formulation of long-term economic planning was attempted only at the national level. While such an exercise did initiate long-term policies and programmes for the development of the country as a whole, it did not result in initiating adequate efforts to utilize the resources available in the States. During the Fourth Five Year Plan period, some State governments started thinking in terms of long-term perspectives of development and a few of them formulated perspective plans for development.

Though the former Mysore State initiated many pioneering efforts in long-term development of the State, the reorganized State has been concerned with only Five Year Plans. Therefore, the Institute for Social and Economic Change felt that it was necessary to initiate thinking on long-term development programme of the State not only to reach the national average level of development but also to reduce absolute poverty and intra-State disparity by utilizing the resource endowment of the State. It was with this objective that the present study has been prepared by the Institute. It should be remembered that any perspective plan can only give a broad view of long-term development perspective. Detailed plans and programmes can be worked out only in five year and annual plans. Further, physical and financial plans for each sector can be worked out only for five year and annual plans provided all the required data are available. In view of the paucity of required data and since it is a perspective plan, we have not attempted to prepare any physical and financial balances for the different sectors of the State economy.