Let’s begin with a fundamental question: What is Panchayati Raj? Panchayati Raj is a system of rural local self-government in India. Think of it as democracy not just in Parliament, but in the village. It empowers people at the grassroots to make decisions about their own development. Evolution of Panchayati Raj The idea of Panchayati…
🔹 Context & Need Despite decades of planned development through centralized Five Year Plans, India continues to face: Why?A key reason: Centralized planning failed to reflect ground-level realities. It often imposed top-down solutions on diverse regions with different socio-economic, geographical, and cultural contexts. 🧩 What is Multi-Level Planning? Multi-Level Planning (MLP) is a decentralized and…
Achievements of Five-Year Plans While Five Year Plans often missed their numerical growth targets, they played a foundational and transformative role in shaping India’s socio-economic fabric. 1. Economic Growth 📌 Interpretation: Despite low starting points and a multitude of challenges—partition, refugee crisis, wars, and global oil shocks—India laid a base for a mixed economy with…
Take a look at the following summarised table consolidating all the five year plans: Plan Period Target Growth Actual Growth Main Points 1 1951-1956 2.1% 3.6% Based on Harrod Domar Model; focused on Agriculture, land reforms, price stability, power and transport 2 1956-1961 4.5% 4.3% Mahalanobis model; focused on rapid industrialisation: heavy and basic industries;…
Before diving into the details of the Five-Year Plans, it’s important to trace the intellectual and ideological roots of planning in India. Interestingly, the idea of economic planning didn’t emerge after independence. It was already brewing before 1947, reflecting both nationalist aspirations and alternative visions of India’s future. 🏛 Planning Before the Five-Year Plans 1….
Let us begin this chapter by addressing a very fundamental question: What is Development? “Vikaas” — a term we often hear in public discourse — but what does it really mean in the academic context? At its core, development implies a comprehensive enhancement in the economic, social, and political conditions of a society. But in…
Let’s begin by asking a basic question — What happens when a city grows, but not in a planned way? People migrate in, but infrastructure doesn’t expand. Resources fall short, housing gets overcrowded, and what we get is a slum. Let’s explore this phenomenon. What is a Slum? In very simple terms: A slum is…
Let’s begin with a basic yet powerful idea. Imagine a country progressing economically—industries are growing, jobs are being created, and infrastructure is expanding. Where do you think this progress physically manifests? In cities. That’s why urban areas are often called the “engines of inclusive economic growth”. It’s in these spaces that economic dynamism meets human…
Imagine this: there’s a city that is rapidly growing. Population is rising. Industries are expanding. Infrastructure—especially transport—is developing fast. And in the process, the physical boundaries of this city begin to stretch outward, eventually touching and merging with the boundaries of nearby towns or cities. This is not a sudden change—it happens slowly and gradually,…
(Indian Context with Bazaar and Port-Based Models) Now that we’ve understood the origin-based classification of Indian cities, it’s time to explore two unique morphological models that help us understand how urban centres in India and other developing regions (especially in parts of Latin America) have evolved: These models are especially useful because the classical Western…
