 The Ninth Plan (1997-2002) was launched in the fiftieth year of India’s Independence.

 The Plan aimed at achieving a targeted GDP growth rate of seven per cent per annum and there was emphasis on the seven identified Basic Minimum Services (BMS) with additional central assistance. These included provision of safe drinking water, availability of primary health service facilities, universalization of primary education, public housing assistance to shelterless poor families, nutritional support to children, connectivity of all villages and habitations and streamlining of the public distribution system with a focus on the poor.

 The Plan also aimed at pursuing a policy of fiscal consolidation, whereby the focus was on sharp reduction in the revenue deficit of the government, including the centre, states and PSUs, through a combination of improved revenue collections and control of inessential expenditures, particularly with regard to subsidies and through recovery of user charges and decentralization of planning and implementation through greater reliance on the states and the Panchayati Raj Institutions.