The period of planning holiday is :

Question

Accepted Answer

The correct option is 4:
The period of Planning Holiday in India refers to the gap between the Third Five-Year Plan (1961–66) and the Fourth Five-Year Plan (1969–74). Following the end of the Third Plan, India faced severe economic strain due to multiple factors, including the 1965 war with Pakistan, successive droughts (1965-66 and 1966-67), and a general inflationary crisis, which depleted financial resources and led to a sharp rise in prices. These crises made it impossible to finalize and launch the Fourth Five-Year Plan in 1966. Consequently, the government adopted three consecutive Annual Plans instead of a traditional Five-Year Plan. These three annual plans covered the period from 1966–67, 1967–68, and 1968–69. Therefore, the "Planning Holiday" lasted from 1966 to 1969, marking a temporary pause in the long-term Five-Year Planning cycle.

The incorrect option is 1 (1965-67): This period overlaps with the final year of the Third Five-Year Plan (which ended in 1966) and only includes the first annual plan of the holiday period. The Planning Holiday period began fully from the fiscal year 1966-67.
The incorrect option is 2 (1947-50): This period covers the years immediately following India’s independence and precedes the launch of the First Five-Year Plan (1951-56), and thus is not referred to as a Planning Holiday. This was the period before formal centralized economic planning began in India.
The incorrect option is 3 (1991-93): This two-year period witnessed the beginning of India’s economic liberalization, privatization, and globalization (LPG) reforms, but it corresponds to a separate gap between the Eighth and Ninth Five-Year Plans (1990–92 was covered by Annual Plans due to political instability and economic crisis, but the formal holiday term refers to the 1966-69 period).