Comment on the Conference

Abstract

Exercising the rapporteur’s traditional privilege at IEA conferences of being allowed to present his overall impression of the conference, Dr Toye began by confessing that it had turned out very differently from what he had been expecting. He had expected a much narrower focus of discussion than in fact had been the case, on the detailed workings of employment-promotion policies in India. Such narrowly focused papers had not been absent. Indeed, Mrs Dandekar’s paper on the Maharashtra Employment Guarantee Scheme had been an outstanding and most instructive example. The relative success of MEGS and the likelihood that it would be replicated in other Indian states was one of the most heartening developments in Indian economic policy for many years.