Planning and NITI Aayog — Quick Revision

A last-week sheet for planning. Prelims loves plan-to-theme matching and the status of bodies; Mains wants the planning-versus-policy debate.

Pre-independence Plans

Year	Plan	Author / sponsor
1934	Planned Economy for India	M. Visvesvaraya
1938	National Planning Committee	Congress, chaired by Jawaharlal Nehru
1944	Bombay Plan	Industrialists
1944	Gandhian Plan	S.N. Agarwal
1945	People’s Plan	M.N. Roy
1950	Sarvodaya Plan	Jayaprakash Narayan

Plan	Period	Remember it by
1st	1951-56	Agriculture, irrigation; Harrod–Domar
2nd	1956-61	Heavy industry; Mahalanobis
3rd	1961-66	Self-sustaining economy; wars and drought
Plan holiday	1966-69	Three Annual Plans
4th	1969-74	Growth with stability; self-reliance
5th	1974-79	Garibi Hatao; ended in 1978
Rolling plan	1978-80	Janata government
6th	1980-85	Poverty eradication
7th	1985-90	Food, Work and Productivity
Annual Plans	1990-92	Crisis years
8th	1992-97	Post-reform; human resource development
9th	1997-2002	Growth with social justice and equality
10th	2002-07	Monitorable targets
11th	2007-12	Faster and more inclusive growth
12th	2012-17	Faster, more inclusive and sustainable growth

	Planning Commission	NITI Aayog
Set up	15 March 1950	1 January 2015
Basis	Cabinet resolution	Cabinet resolution
Chair	Prime Minister	Prime Minister
Day-to-day head	Deputy Chairman	Vice-Chairperson
States’ forum	National Development Council (1952)	Governing Council
Funds	Allocated plan assistance	None
Output	Five-Year Plans	Strategy documents, indices, evaluation

High-yield facts

“Economic and social planning” is Entry 20 of the Concurrent List.
Neither the Planning Commission, the NDC nor NITI Aayog is constitutional or statutory.
Governing Council: CMs of all States and UTs with legislatures + Lt Governors of other UTs, chaired by the PM.
NITI’s CEO is appointed by the PM, in the rank of Secretary to the Government of India.
Atal Innovation Mission (2016) and the Aspirational Districts Programme (2018) are anchored in NITI Aayog.
The Plan/non-Plan expenditure distinction ended with the 2017-18 Budget.

Index	Measures
SDG India Index	States’ progress on the Sustainable Development Goals
Composite Water Management Index	Water management by States
School Education Quality Index	School education outcomes
India Innovation Index	Innovation capacity of States
Export Preparedness Index	States’ export readiness
National Multidimensional Poverty Index	Deprivations in health, education and living standards

Mahalanobis = Second Plan, not First.
NITI Aayog does not allocate funds; the Finance Commission (Article 280) handles devolution.
The Twelfth Plan was the last; there is no Thirteenth Plan.
The rolling plan (1978-80) and the plan holiday (1966-69) are different gaps.