Consider the following statements: I. The Second Five-Year Plan sought to promote development which would establish socialistic pattern of society in India. II. Between 1966 and 1969, three Annual Plans were formulated. III. The Ninth Five-Year Plan could not take off at its stipulated time in the 60th year of India's Independence. Which of the statements given above are correct?

The correct answer is A, I and II only. Statements I and II are true, but the Ninth Plan began in 1997, the fiftieth year of Independence, not the sixtieth.

In December 1954 Parliament accepted the "socialistic pattern of society" as the goal of policy, and the Second Five-Year Plan (1956-61), built on the Mahalanobis model, aimed at it through rapid industrialisation with a large public sector. After the Third Plan was disrupted by the wars of 1962 and 1965 and by droughts, the Fourth Plan was put off and three Annual Plans were made for 1966-67, 1967-68 and 1968-69, a phase called the "plan holiday". The Ninth Plan covered 1997-2002 and opened in the fiftieth year of Independence; the plan that began in the sixtieth year was the Eleventh (2007-12).

B is wrong because it includes the false statement III and leaves out II. C is wrong because it includes statement III. D is wrong because statement III is not correct.

Exam tip: Second Plan 1956-61 (Mahalanobis, socialistic pattern), plan holiday 1966-69, Ninth Plan 1997-2002 in the fiftieth year of Independence.