4 SOCIAL SCIENTIST stated it, one of the objectives of planning itself may be to change the institutional milieu.3 Thus, there is a dialectical relationship between planning and the "regime of institutions" within which it takes place. This is the second component of planning. For understandable reasons wjthig ladia and elsewhere this second component of planning has not 'received the kind of attention it deserves. The purpose of this paper is to examine some aspects—only some very limited aspects of a vast and complex area—of the institutional dimensions and implications of planning in India. In this regard there is a problem that one confronts at the very outset. In view of the variety of institutions and the intricate manner in which they permeate the planning process, it is not easy to make a choice of institutions for treatment. It is, therefore, necessary to resort to something of an indirect procedure. After all, our concern with institutions is not for thysir own. sak^ ; we are using them as a means to understand the nature of economic and socio-economic processes not readily grasped thupHgb a mere commodity flow approach. Hence we shall concentrate on thw basic aspects of the socio-economic processes in a planned economy. Of thpse the firat will be the manner in which people make a living for it is this aspect which provides the clearest profiles of socio-economic procesees and is also the most institutionally embedded. Secondly, we shall examine the modes of the generation and appropriation of surplus in the economy as these determine the growth and transformation of the economy over tim^ acid also reveal a great deal of the institutional milieu of the economy. Thir41y, we shall make an assessment of the State as the State is the leading institution even in the kind of ths less than comprehensive planning that has been going on in India. These three aspects are dealt with in Part II of the paper. In Part III we attempt an overall interpretation of the institutional transformation ofAe Indian epo^iomy based on the treatment in Part II. II Modes of livmg qf the people The modes of living of the people are characterized by a B%mbc^ features such as occupations, levels of income, location^ of activity and* thwg, ^tc* We shall take up a few of these which, take% tog^tfae^ wiHi provide an impressionistic account of the ways in which fei^pit m^teiOi HVitig. Of these, occupations which indicate what people- do fot a living am theses! important. The decennial censuses of India canvass information on what c^lfte to be reported as the distribution of'^orlaBr& by iadmtrial) categories. Rail information on this^ aspect relating to t&e 1981 census has. pot yet become ^yailable^ However, an official publication presents the