need for increasing savings in the ecocomy and supplementing then by resources from abroad, if the process of development which has been set in motion by the first Five Year plan is to be satisfactorily carried forward. When the broad framework of the plan is completed it is expected that the foundation will have been laid for further advance. The basic problem is to promote balanced development as rapidly as possible but the pace will be conditioned by the degree of success in mobilizing resources.
Out of the II million tons of the wheat production in India, people generally in the urban areas take about 3 lakh tons a month. Still there is shortage. The explanation it is believed is to be found in the fact that more people in towns are eating wheat to-day then a few years ago. This is plausible because the difference between the fair price shop cost of finer grains is progressively diminishing to the point of becoming negligible.
In the context of the basic situation in agriculture it is only natural that the rising demand for foodgrains in a developing economy and the scarcity caused by frequent failures of rain will strengthen the propensity of the producers as well as the traders to stock so long as a free market in agricultural produce is maintained.
Mr. Nehru is true at the point of suggesting that economy need not be achieved at the cost of efficiency. Therefore instead of abolishing the costly appendages the union government by a recent act of Parliament has decided to enlarge the membership of the states imposing fresh burdens on the state government concerned. But we think that the limited resources under the plan would be spent to the best advantage of the nation only if these are applied to meeting the most essential needs of the people. Because the fact is that "Economy does not consist in the reckless reduction of estimates, on the contrary such a course almost necessarily tends to increased expenditure. There can be no economy where there is no efficiency."
Today there is an avalanche of loose talk about industrialisation of the country at a gallopping speed But the dictates of reason and robust realism suggest strongly that the super-structure of this imposing edifice of industrialisation will continue to be based on a sandy foundation so long as there is not a sound agrarian economy to sustain it at the bottom. If we are inured to importing foodgrains for domestie consumption making
