INDUSTRIES UNDER THE ROLLING PLAN 25 It follows that the five-year plans may be considered as parts of a long-term plan which defines the long-term perspective for the economy. The achievements of the five-year plans can then be checked against the targets specified in the perspective. A perspective for a 15-year period, 1960-61 to 1975-76, was suggested by the Planning Commission in 1964 with a similar objective. Although much of the significance of the exercises in detail diminished in the upheavals through which the economy passed in the subsequent period, the sense of direction that it sought to impart was not entirely lost and the planners sought to project their vision well beyond the terminal years of the five-year period of a plan. However, there has not been much attempt to pursue the concept of the perspective plan with any rigour. Such a concept, it may be observed, is built in the planning models of the Soviet economy.4 Need for Perspective Plan The need for reviving the concept of perspective plan assumes greater importance in view of the introduction of the scheme for rolling plan in the current plan. In the absence of any direction from a perspective plan, the rolling plan can lead to arbitrary decisions during the extension of the planning horizon. There is no assurance that the rolling plans with shifting horizons would, under the circumstances, be following any consistent pattern, not to speak of an optimal path. It leaves the possibility of changes in the targets over the extended period being effected in a piecemeal fashion for the lack of any perspective over the long period. There are reasons to fear that this is happening in practice in India. The draft plan, for instance, considered only a marginal addition to the capacity of steal production. Recent moves by the Goverment suggest that a large expansion in the capacity is in the offing. This may be considered an improvement on the draft so far as steel is concerned. But it does not appear to emerge as a result of any consistent thinking about the plan. On the other hand, the draft plan, it is claimed, has been checked against a consistency model. The draft plan is rightly concerned with the contemporary problems of growing unemployment and poverty of the population, particularly in the rural areas. It allocates massive resources for rural development and labour intensive activities. It is understandable that at the present stage resources would be distributed thinly over wide areas to employ people in activities which may have low