Food Production-Failure of Crash Plan

reasons were that the development plans for industries were never worked out in sufficient detail in terms of scales of production, technology, location, etc, that inter se priorities among the legion of so-called priorities were never determined, that the time-phasing of the planned investment in any industry was left vague, and so on. In these respects too the industrial policy statement presages no improvement. Quite the contrary. The off-hand manner in which the list of so-called "hasta, critical and strategic'' industries has been put together points to a further dilution of industrial priorities, if that is possible. As already mentioned, the list contains omnibus categories which no doubt hide all manner of nonessential industries. Even some of the industries specifically mentioned, such as synthetic detergents or man-made fibres, can scarcely be classified as "basic, critical and strategic'. This again is perfectly in keeping with what has been actually happening in the last few years when, faced with an industrial recession, the government has thrown to the winds even such notions of priorities as might have been contained in the now practically-defunct Fourth Plan. Clearly, without a scheme of priorities, industrial licensing has no raison d'etre as a major instrument for regulating the development of industries. Of course, it will continue to be used, as it has been in the past, as a devise for dispensing