Skilled manpower forecasts are considered the essence of national or regional manpower planning. A variety of such forecasts in such a vast and complex country as India is not unexpected. Skilled manpower was and continues to be considered an essential building block for nation-building in most developing countries including India. Indeed, it has been difficult to rationalise expenditure on most new educational institutions — technical or non-technical — in India with its vast problems of high illiteracy and low per capita income without some manpower demand forecasts. Given this setting, this paper has attempted to take a close and dispassionate look at the experience of India in manpower planning, especially since Independence. The paper has reviewed the methodology used in the various exercises made for such forecasts — sometimes done right up to matriculation level — and attempted many realisation comparisons. Even for the high professional categories such as engineers, scientists and doctors it has found serious discrepancies. While it has tried to rationalise them and assessed their actual impact on educational decision-making, it had to take note of very serious data constraints which make both supply and demand estimates difficult. The data situation in the predominantly agrarian Indian economy has therefore been carefully reviewed and suggestions for adjustments and improvements of data made. Since occupational structures and their evolution are almost a sine qua non of a classical manpower requirements approach, the paper takes a close look at the latest available data from the Census and other sources. It certainly found growth in occupational divisions 0, 1 and 2, but sometimes cannot separate the genuine growth from that due to the ‘supply’ effect. Despite all these limitations the paper notices that manpower planning activity continues to be favoured at practically all levels — national, State, regional or industrial.