The Planning Commission has repeatedly emphasized in its Tenth Plan report the importance of ensuring that the Backward Classes receive adequate benefits from general progress, and it has stressed that special programs financed from plan provisions should not be used as substitutes for measures necessary to enable these classes to take full advantage of general progress. However, no attempt is made in the midterm appraisal to assess how effectively this recommendation of the Planning Commission was implemented by the Central and State Governments. There is reason to believe that, as before, adequate benefits have not accrued to the Backward Classes from the general progress. No doubt, some significant progress has been made in the field of education, but even here, the shortfalls are glaring. Our speed in advancing literacy has not kept pace with the increase in our population, and today, there are more illiterates in India than there were in 1951. The midterm appraisal itself confesses that the standard of education, both at the primary and secondary stages, has declined. There has been no improvement in the discipline of students, and no attempt has been made to cultivate in these students the democratic spirit or to educate them in the art of democratic citizenship, which would equip them to discharge their duties as responsible citizens in a democracy. Despite the recommendations of the Radhakrishnan University Education Commission and the Mudaliar Secondary Education Commission, the social ideals of education are yet to be clearly determined by this Government, and efforts to reorient our educational system based on those social ideals have not materialized. The Directive Principles of State Policy required that, by January 1961, provision for free and compulsory education for all children up to the age of fourteen be made by the State. Yet, even by the end of the Eleventh Five Year Plan, it is doubtful whether we will have achieved this goal. It is clear that, in the last two years, we have not made any significant progress toward achieving the social objectives laid down in the Constitution's Directive Principles. The Planning Commission should not limit the scope of these social objectives, its role is to implement the directives set by the State. In the Tenth Five Year Plan, special attention was drawn to three key objectives: first, that men and women as citizens should equally have the right to adequate means of livelihood, second, that the ownership and control of material resources of the community should be distributed in a way that best serves the common good, and third, that the operation of the economic system should not result in the concentration of wealth and means of production to the common detriment. Madam, I beg to submit that no meaningful progress has been made concerning these three social objectives highlighted by the Planning Commission. Furthermore, the Directive Principles require the State to pay special attention to the promotion of cottage and rural industries. While the Tenth Five Year Plan report places considerable stress on this issue, we have seen little significant achievement. The midterm appraisal concedes that there has been a decline in the production of goods like khandsari and vegetable oils. While the production of handloom cloth and khadi has shown a modest increase, the appraisal admits that production will still fall short of the planned targets by the end of the Sixth Plan period by about 100 to 150 million meters for handloom cloth and 50 to 60 million meters for khadi. The midterm appraisal also acknowledges that small industries and industrial estates have generally suffered due to a lack of essential raw materials, particularly since the onset of the emergency. Madam, while this Government claims to follow the ideals of Mahatma Gandhi, the father of the nation, and to be committed to the promotion of small scale, cottage, and rural industries as Gandhi advocated, it is in fact treating these sectors with step motherly neglect. Consider the case of gur and khandsari production: sometimes the Government shows great enthusiasm for promoting khandsari production, only to impose various restrictions on it later. The Defence of India rules have been used to regulate the supply of sugarcane for producing gur and khandsari, further hampering these industries. This inconsistent and inadequate support for small scale and rural industries, along with the lack of progress in ensuring the equitable distribution of wealth and resources, demonstrates that the Government’s commitment to the values of social justice and economic equality, as enshrined in the Directive Principles, remains superficial.