112 PONTIFICIAE ACADEMIAE SCIENTIARVM SCRIPTA VARIA - 28
In consequence, great difficulties began to be experienced
from the early years of the First Plan. Practically all the estim-
ates for investments had been made in purely financial terms
and a sizable increase in investments had been approved purely
on a financial basis. As soon as the investment projects began
to be implemented, there was a sharp and continuing increase
in the requirements of steel and other goods and services.
Very soon the demand for cement increased to nearly three
times the domestic supply. There was also a continuing and
large expenditure of foreign currency for the import of steel,
which added up to something like 2,000 million dollars in
the next ten years or so. In 1050 it would have been possible
to establish a new million ton steel plant with perhaps about
150 million dollars of imported machinery. Had this project
deen started at that time an additional supply of one million
ton of steel (worth more than one hundred million dollars per
year) would have been available from the early years of the
Second Fide Year Plan, and would have resulted in a very
large and continuing saving of foreign exchange. The deci-
sion to drop the million ton steel project from the First Plan
was due to attention being focussed only on the current demand
in 1949, that is, due to a complete failure to appreciate the
need of looking ahead to get ready to meet the demand for
steel which was certain to increase rapidly in future.
Targets of steel in 1970: At heavy cost we had learnt the
lesson of not proceeding with the building up of capacity for
steel production 12 or 15 years ago. Much attention is now
oeing given to advance planning for steel. A detailed analysis
of the requirements of steel is made, where possible, by indi-
vidual items of production. With a given set of production
targets for, say, 1970, it is possible in this way to prepare
useful estimates of the requireménts of steel. Some illustrative
figures for the transport equipment industry is given in the
following table.
‘151 Mahalanobis I] - pag: 10
