Consider the following statements:

1. Launching of Fourth five-year plan was postponed and three annual plans had to be resorted to between 1966 to 1969.

2. Fifth five-year plan was terminated a year earlier.

3. Eighth five-year plan commenced in 1992 instead of 1990.

Which of these statements is/are correct?

Solution

The government had to declare "Plan Holidays" (1966-67, 1967-68, and 1968-69). The Sino-Indian War and the Indo-Pak War, which caused the Third Five Year Plan to fail, were the primary causes of the plan holidays. Therefore, the Fourth five-year plan was postponed. Hence, statement 1 is correct. The new approach was "Rolling Plan". It terminated the fifth five-year plan in 1977-78 and launched its own sixth five-year plan for period 1978-83 and called it rolling plan. The Janata Party government rejected the Fifth Five-Year Plan and introduced a new Sixth Five-Year Plan (1978-1980). The plan was terminated in 1978, its fourth year, due to change in the Government at the Centre. Hence, statement 2 is correct. The Eight Five Year Plan was not introduced in 1990 and the following years 1990-91 and 1991-92 were treated as Annual Plans. This was largely because of the economic instability. India faced a crisis of foreign exchange reserves during this time. Therefore, Eighth five-year plan commenced in 1992 instead of 1990. Hence, statement 3 is correct. Therefore, D is the right answer.