Give the short history of economic planning in India.

A short history of economic planning in India : Planning in India was launched on April 1,1951 ending on March 31,1956. The period of planning was fixed at five years by the Planning Commission under the chairmanship of the then Prime Minister Sh. Jawahar Lal Nehru. Since then we have completed 10 five year plans and the eleventh five year plan has been launched w.e.f. April, 2007. Of course in between the different five year plans, there have been five annual plans. But annual plans were concerned not as alternative to five year plans. There were just a stop-gap arrangements where the five year plans could not be launched due to certain unavoidable circumstances. Five year plans in India have been pursued with well-defined set of objectives. These are broadly classified into long and short period objectives.