Some Problems of Perspective Planning in Pakistan

The growing confidence of Pakistan’s planners in the nation’s economic future is indicated by the boldness of their successive plans and by the lengthening of their time horizon. As far as the latter is concerned, the First Five-Year Plan did not reflect any thinking on economic and social development beyond a specific five-year period; the Second Plan, however, contained some remarks on long-term growth; the Third Plan is being prepared in close relation to the work being done on the Perspective Plan. What fifteen years ago would have been regarded as a waste of time is now considered to be of basic import¬ance for sound planning. What nobody dared think about in the earlier days is now the subject of serious analysis and policy-making. The need for a Perspective Plan is there not only from an economic angle but there are also sound political reasons for it. From the economic angle, we realized that the five-year periods chosen for our plans are only arbitrary periods in a process stretching over a much longer time. Our decisions and policies during one plan influence the pattern of growth in the next one, and influence also the effectiveness of established policies. Therefore, any particular five-year plan has to be part of a whole chain of plans, all fitting together and building further on the work done in the preceding period.