Housing & Five Year Plans of India

Since 1951, India has seen the conclusion of twelve five year plans! In fact, the 12^th Five Year Plan is the last five-year plan to be put into action since the Niti Aayog decided to do away with the plans completely. Thus, in the given light, it becomes important to look at the relevance of the five year plans in India’s attempt at development and well-being. [Note: Of course, in its place the government has decided to put into place a three-year action plan.

Of course, as always, we start with the historical backdrop of the five year plans. It is a little known fact that the concept of five year plans as the basis for economic planning in fact was a borrowed concept, much like most other things; and it was in fact borrowed from the erstwhile USSR whence from Joseph Stalin had first implemented his First Five Year Plan (1928-32).

Thus, Nehruvian socialist India too began its journey with the implementation of its First Five Year Plan in 1951. Each Five Year Plan since then has paid heed to the issue of housing for its citizens by including a separate chapter related to Housing, as enumerated in the appendix at the end of the article.

Thus, the Government of India fixed the outlay on housing through the five year plans it implemented through the years. Although, if we look at the total outlay that has been allocated for housing over the years in the various five-year plans vis-a-vis the total outlay fixed for each of the five year plans, we will note that the total expenditure allocated to housing actually has gone down. While the 1^st Five Year Plan, for instance, fixed 34% of the total plan outlay towards housing, the percentage subsequently decreased to a single digit in terms of percentage of the total plan outlay.

What this basically means is that over the years, the need for housing has actually been neglected by subsequent governments in power when drafting the five year plans. This is why the present Prime Minister, Shri. Narendra Modi was forced to send a strong message to the state governments to accord top priority to the issue of housing and thereby ensure housing for all by 2022. What’s more, state governments are also required to send a detailed roadmap to the PMO with regards the implementation. At least, now we hope that the 3 year plans will be able to deliver what the 5 year plans promised!

Appendix

1^st Five Year Plan: Chapter 35 – Housing

2^nd Five Year Plan: Chapter 26 – Housing

3^rd Five Year Plan: Chapter 33 – Housing and Urban and Rural planning

4^th Five Year Plan: Chapter 19 – Regional Development, Housing and Water Supply

5^th Five Year Plan: Chapter 9 – Urban Development, Housing and Water Supply

6^th Five Year Plan: Chapter 23 – Housing, Urban Development and Water Supply

7^th Five Year Plan: Chapter 12 – Housing, Urban Development, Water Supply and Sanitation

8^th Five Year Plan: Chapter 14 – Housing, Water Supply and Sanitation

9^th Five Year Plan: Chapter 3.7 – Housing, Urban Development, Water Supply and Civic Amenities

10^th Five Year Plan: Chapter 6.1 – Urban Development

11^th Five Year Plan: Chapter 5 – Drinking Water, Sanitation and Clean Living Conditions

12^th Five Year Plan: Chapters 17 & 18 – Rural Development and Urban Development respectively