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Unit 3: Eleventh Five Year Plan

in Asia and the Pacific (2006) brings out the hard reality that between 1990 and 2002. there was a Notes
decline in real wages in manufacturing in India by 22 percent, despite an increase in manufacturing
labour productivity of over 84 percent over the same period. Obviously, this implies that the fruits of
economic reforms are pocketed by the corporate sector, while labour is denied its due. Ironically, the
salaries of managerial and technical personnel have been increasing at the rate of 15% per annum.
The Planning Commission’s ‘inclusive growth’ fails to provide any strategy for improving the share
of labour in the surplus generated by faster growth. Critics have serious doubts about the sincerity
with which the equity objective is sought to be achieved by the 11 Plan. The determination of wages
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by market forces and taking away even the modicum of protection by labour laws will give the
organized sector business magnates unbridled power to freely exploit and pauperize labour.
Self-Assessment
1. Choose the correct option:
(i) The eleventh five year plan was approved in
(a) 2007 (b) 2002 (c) 2006 (d) 2001
(ii) The percentage of population below the official poverty line has come down from 36% to
(a) 40% (b) 20% (c) 28% (d) none of these
(iii) During the Tenth Plan, All India GDP growth average was
(a)5% (b)6% (c) 7.6% (d) None of these
(iv) The planning commission's target of creating ------million jobs during the eleventh plan.
(a)30 (b)40 (c)50 (d)58
3.6 Summary

• The Eleventh Plan has set the correct goal in the form of moving ‘Towards Faster and More
Inclusive Growth’ but it intends to chart out a course which is basically anti-labour and pro-
corporate sector. This is precisely in conflict with the goal of providing secure income and
employment for ‘aam admi’ (common man).
• The best way to achieve this is to promote small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and small
peasant agriculture. But there is no clear policy of promoting SMEs.
• It sidetracks the issue of small peasant agriculture and pleads for contract farming which is
capital-intensive and not labour intensive. The recommendations of the National Commission
on Farmers (NCF) headed by eminent agricultural scientist Dr. M S Swaminathan regarding
the setting up a fund for farmers affected by crop losses on the lines of national calamity fund,
reducing interest on farm loans to 4% and not charging compound rate of interest and imposing
quantitative restrictions on import of agricultural products, have not been included in the
Eleventh Plan.
• The Planning Commission’s target of creating 58 million jobs during the Eleventh Plan is
inadequate and it would have been much better if the Commission had adhered to the target of
65 million jobs as suggested by the Approach Paper.
• The removal of poverty requires targeted attention to the poor. The Planning Commission has
given a long catalogue of schemes such as National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme,
Swaran Jayanti Rozgar Yojana (SJRY), slum improvement programme, housing for the poor
and skill development programmes etc. The effectivity of implementation will indicate the extent
to which the targeted beneficiaries are helped.
• The Planning commission is silent on some issues like food security, strengthening price support
systems, creation of price stabilization fund for agricultural commodities, universalizing crop
insurance, protection to peasantry from subsidized imports of agricultural commodities and
land reform.

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