The Board was reconstituted in 1977 with Chief Minister Sri K Karunakaran as Chairperson and Ministers of Finance, Industries, Home, Education and Revenue as Members, a part-time Vice Chairperson, five part-time Members and three senior Government officials as part-time Members. The Special Secretaries/Secretaries to Government were continued as Ex-officio Advisers.

The reconstituted Board prepared the draft Five-Year Plan (1978-83). In this context, the Board set up 13 Steering Committees and 54 Task forces involving about 700 official and non-official experts in various fields. The Members of the Board were nominated as Chairperson of important Steering Committees. In order to assist the Steering Committees and Task Force in the formulation of Plan programmes, the different divisions of the Planning Board brought out several background papers, technical and analytical studies relating to the potential and problems of the State.

Even though the Board was responsible for the preparation of the State’s Five-Year Plans, the Annual Plans were formulated in the past under the guidance of the Planning Department in the Secretariat. However, from 1979-80 onwards, this task was also assigned to the Planning Board. As part of the decentralisation of the planning process, District Planning Units were set up in the eleven districts of the State. Each Unit was headed by a District Planning Officer and was supported by a research staff. The District Planning Unit was under the overall administrative control of the District Collector and subjected to the technical guidance of the State Planning Board.