Development and change in India/

Since the dawn of planning in India strenuous efforts have been made to achieve the enshrined twin objectives of development and equity. But our initial approach of maximising growth, in spite of witnessing appreciable achievement, exhibited signs of failure to help the masses especially the bottom 40 per cent of the total population. Therefore, around the Seventy, we started attacking directly on widespread cruel bells of poverty, unemployment and inequality through enforcement of 'Area Development' and 'Target Group' approaches. However, an overall scenario of the socio-economic trans formation emerging from the enforcement has hardly been adequately analysed for purposes of policy implications.
Therefore, a three-day seminar was organiz ed by the Giri Institute of Development Studies, Lucknow with a view to analysing the 'Development and Change in Uttar Pradesh' during the period 1960 onwards. The papers on various themes presented by contributors are, in the present volume, arranged in five sections consisting of (a) The State Economy in National Perspective, (b) Trends in Overall Development, (c) Agriculture and Rural Development, (d) Urbanization and Industrial Development and (e) Economic Infrastructure and Social Services. The focus of analysis in these sections is not confining to only performance of the State economy but also extends to its comparison with the rest of India.
Findings of the Seminar reveal that performance of Uttar Pradesh upto the end of the Fourth Plan had been lagging behind the national average in terms of certain selected indicators of development. But there has been a definite improvement in its growth performance since 1974-75 and the State can no long er be blamed for exercising a dragging influence on the national economy although it continues to be backward in respect of the quality of life. Besides, the State is quite rich in natural endowments and resource potentials but extra care is needed to augment the level of their exploitation, through upgrading the quality of project administration.