Agriculture: Second Round of Economic Reforms

I
Economic Reforms: First Phase

During the last decade there has been a major shift in economic policies in our country. It is not only because several policy measures aimed at liberalisation and globalisation were initiated during this period – the trends towards debureaucratisation and ‘opening up’ of the economy were already set in during the 1980s. The real difference between the current reform process and the earlier measures is that the former challenges the very basis of planning and policy-making which guided Indian economic development since independence. A faith in central control on the allocation of resources, ‘commanding heights’ to the public sector, inward looking approach and key role assigned to bureaucracy to implement development strategies were the principal features of the earlier approach to development. These were seriously challenged with the initiation of the new reform process. We do have vestiges of the old structure, and more so the old attitudes, at different levels and in different areas of our economy and polity, but for good or bad a new chapter has been opened in our economic policies and development strategies. It is something which we cannot ignore whatever might be our ideological predilection.