9th, 10th and 11th Five Year Plans

Ninth Five Year Plan: April 1, 1997 to March 31, 2002

This period saw the change in the government. The Ninth plan was started with an objective of “Growth with Social Justice and Equality”. It also assigned importance to agriculture growth.  Regulation of the debt programmes was emphasized to improve government’s financial position.  It was developed in context of 4 important dimensions of the government policy:

  • Improving the quality of the life
  • Generation of Productive employment
  • Creation of regional balances
  • Self reliance

The average target growth rate was 6.5% but the achieved growth rate was 5.5%. The growth in agriculture fell to 2.1% and manufacturing fell to 4.51% from 4.69% and 7.57 % from the previous plans.

Tenth Five Year Plan: April 1, 2002 to March 31, 2007

The tenth plan was launched by Atal Bihari Vajpayee Government on December 21, 2002. This plan was prepared in the background of high expectations arising from the better growth rate achieved after the liberalization. Economy accelerated in the Tenth Plan period (2002–03 to 2006–07) to record an average growth of 7.7%, the highest in any Plan period so far. National Income increased by 7.6% and Per capita income by 6% per annum. Industrial production increased at the rate of 8.6% per year. In the last year of the plan double digit growth was achieved. This led the Vajpayee government to call for new election bit earlier than its scheduled time in 2004. The NDA asked vote in the name of “feel good factor” but somehow, this did not work. Vajpayee was ousted from power and UPA-I government came at the centre.  The 61st report of the NSSO for 2004-05 recorded poverty to be 22% from the earlier level of 26.1%. UPA government continued many of the NDA schemes. It launched Bharat Nirman to upgrade rural infrastructure.

11th Five Year Plan

India entered the Eleventh Plan period with an impressive record of economic growth. Together with 10th plan progress,  India emerged as one of the fastest growing economies in the world in the initial years of 11th plan. India’s economic fundamentals have been improving in many dimensions, and this is reflected in the fact that despite the slowdown in 2011–12,the growth rate of the economy averaged 8 per cent in the Eleventh Plan period. This was lower than the Plan target of 9 per cent, but it was better than the achievement of 7.8 per cent in the Tenth Plan.


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