Series consists of records maintained by Bernard R. Bell primarily relating to his work studying India's Fourth Five-Year plan while he was economic advisor to Andre de Lattre, President Woods' appointed representative to India. The study began with an appraisal mission headed by Bell which visited India in October-November 1966. The purposes of the mission were to examine the changes made in Indian economic policy in 1966 and how they were being implemented, and to survey the proposed Fourth Five-Year Plan and the aid requirements associated with it. The series contains: Bell's outgoing memoranda and cables with Woods and de Lattre and members of the 1966 appraisal mission to India; correspondence on the previous Bell Mission Report (1964-1966) on India's economy; correspondence with the government of India and documents from the U.S. government on India; a file on Woods' meeting with Ashok Mehta, the Indian Minister of Planning; and copies of official meeting documents of the India Consortium, a group of donor countries concerned with providing aid to India and India's development efforts. The consortium meeting records are filed with copies of memoranda primarily from Alexander Stevenson, Associate Director of Asia Department, and copied to Bell and others, covering the years 1966 to 1968.

Series also contains: subject files relating to the Fourth Plan, containing correspondence and background reference materials on agricultural policy, foreign debt, family planning, power, and other topics; a copy of Bell's fourteen volume Bell Mission report in 1965 published as "The Report to the President of the IBRD and IDA on India's Economic Development Effort"; and a copy of his 1967 Bank report titled, "Indian Economic Policy and the Fourth Five-Year Plan".

Also included in the series is a small volume of correspondence and other records, dating from 1964 to 1965, relating to the India coal transport study financed by the Bank, a report written by Bell's consulting firm in 1963 on statistics of Korea, and economic reports authored by the Bank, the Indian government or external research groups on India, its growth, and economic prospects, dating from 1973 to 1975.