Economic Reforms in India during the Early Decade of 21st Century

Authors: Subhash Singh

Country: India

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Abstract: It is generally agreed in studies on Indian economy that the process of economic reforms was initiated in India by the government. of P.V. Narasimha Rao in 1991 with the announcement of a number of measures for liberalizing the economy by the then Finance Minister Manmohan Singh. However, Arvind Panagariya (2001) has argued that the process of economic reforms was initiated during the second half of 1980’s under the stewardship of the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. In support of his contention, he quotes from the Kingsley Martin Memorial Lecture, delivered in Cambridge in 1987 by I.G Patel who approvingly described the reforms introduced by Rajiv Gandhi in the preceding one and a half years as the ‘New Economic Policy’. This New Economic Policy had moved the Indian economy towards increased outward and inward competition by the end of 1980’s. Panagariya emphasizes the shift in the Industrial Policy statement, 1990 towards large-scale liberalization. This policy provides compelling evidence that internal and external liberalization had gained considerable political acceptance at least a year before the balance of payments crisis. In his own study, Panagariya prefers to term the period since 1988 as the phase of economic reforms.

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Paper Id: 1803

Published On: 2014-10-27

Published In: Volume 2, Issue 5, September-October 2014

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