The initial proposal and subsequent release of the First Five-Year Plan in December 1951 generated considerable enthusiasm throughout the country. Individuals from diverse backgrounds, including academics, journalists, government officials, private sector employees, industrialists, farmers, and politicians, actively engaged in extensive discussions and debates surrounding the plan. The enthusiasm for planning reached its zenith with the commencement of the Second Five-Year Plan in 1956 and persisted to some extent until the Third Five-Year Plan in 1961. The implementation of the Fourth Plan was scheduled to commence in 1966.

During the late 1950s, India's precious foreign exchange was spent to buy which of the following?

Technology.

The period of the Second Five-Year Plan, however, had its problems as well. India was technologically backward, so it had to spend precious foreign exchange to buy technology from the global market. That apart, as industry attracted more investment than agriculture, the possibility of food shortage loomed largely. The Indian planners found balancing industry and agriculture really difficult.