NEW DELHI- Burying the Sixth Plan

Burying the Sixth Plan A STRIKING feature of the latest full meeting of the Planning Commission over which the Prime Minister presided and which decided on yet another round of revisions and reordering of investment priorities in the Sixth Plan was that what is euphemistically called defence expenditure figured prominently in its deliberations. The Planning Commission is ordinarily not the body or the forum which concerns itself with defence matters. It seems, however, that the government leadership thought it necessary at this meeting of the Commission to indicate that mounting defence expenditure had a bearing on availability of resources for the development plan and that the Planning Commission would have to reckon with this fact in its excercises about resources available for development planning and make adjustments and revisions accordingly, It is after an interval of nearly two decades