The previous decade has reversed the presumptions about development, and more than anything else, it has made it difficult to decide what is in store for the next decade. However, there are some things about which one can make claims with some confidence. Firstly, education, health, and productive employment are the decisive factors for development and fairness. We believe that all these are results of rapid economic development, and that development alone can generate the resources to achieve these ends.

In its present form, it is best to view these as a cause rather than merely a result of development. In fact, in every case of successful development, the earlier reforms in education, technical skills, health, and productive tasks are vital. Secondly, technical ability is a vital resource and explains the high rate of development in production and trade compared with the rate of development in more traditional factors such as natural resources or capital formation. Industrial momentum in a factory or farm is more important than the mere presence of a research organization.

Thirdly, the environment cannot be ignored for long, an issue that is next only to disarmament in the list of international concerns. At the national level, there has been a definite rise in neglect towards the environment on account of development. In the context of India, at least two immediate factors raise the rate mentioned above.

The first is the rise in population. By giving momentum to the expansion of population and the workforce, human resource development has achieved synergistic importance. Second, as a large country, we cannot make an independent place for ourselves in the global system without developing appropriate ability and self-respect, and for this the achievement of technical skills is a decisive step. So far, we have emphasized human resource development, targets of production such as tonnes of steel and kilowatt-hours of electricity, targets of capacity such as kilometres, and other targets such as the number of schools and students and the number of electrified villages, along with known techniques, full use of natural resources, and the maximum possible use of available financial resources.