I welcome you to your labours in a new sesion of parliament. I wish you another year of dedicated work in the service of our county. This is the first budget session of a new decade. Behind us lies the decade of the sixties. This perod has been one of anxiety, of trials and tribulations and also for achievement. India had to face two wars and two years of unprecedented drought.
All citizens stout-heartedly faced this perod of trial. The wars brought home to us the inescapable necessity for self-reliance and the drought focussed our energies on augmentation of agirultural production. Indeed, a new strategy for agricultural development was implemented during this period and its success has attracted worldwide attention. The challenge posed by the industrial recession was also met in a variety of ways. Many industrial units began diversifying their production.
The search for markets for our goods was intensified. Taking stock of our record during the period beginning with our independence and ending with the decade of the sixies. Hon’ble Members will recognise the range and scope of our country’s achievement in industry and technology and in education and the arts. The path of progress tends to be uneven and beset with reverses. Frustration and hardships. However, our country to day is no longer stagnant. It is in ferment. The aspirations of our people and their hopes have been aroused. They are vocal and impatient conscious of their needs and rights. There has been an unleashing of a vast amount of human-energy and enthusiasm. Ideas, attitudes and even habits are rapibly changing. And this transformation is taking place by consent and within the framework of a political demorcracy. Governnment are determined to give to these vast forces, which have been unleashed by the developments of the last two decades. a new sense of direction and purpose as well as a realisable goal.
There are several kinds of life in one sense nobody lives too long but it is quite true that many continue to live after they have ceased to be capable of earning a living. Many others, too, do not want to be obliged to go on working until an age when it is too late for them to enjoy their retirment and perhaps take up new interests. Some people may have no dependants but also they may have no one on whom to depend. It is most important for these to make provision for their later years.