Introduction

Abstract

As an invited fellow at the World Institute of Development Economics at Helsinki in 1991, the author had written a book on Indian development planning during The Nineties of the last century. It was reasonably well received, running into a reprint and a paper back, so much so that there was pressure to revise it. The Planning Commission of India has since been abolished (It was replaced by the NITI Aayog.). It seemed more appropriate to write a book on Indian economic policy for the current generation of students to prepare them for work in the economy as it unfolds. The approach here is to analyse the policy stance of the present NDA Government in India, as stated in recent official documents and to see if it has any relationship with past plans in terms of concepts or program details. The Government has released after considerable examination the NITI Aayog’s Vision Statement up to 2020 (NITI Aayog 2017). This perspective is examined from the planning angle and for its sectoral perspective for agriculture, rural development and the manufacturing sector. The story in the main is that ‘Everything Changes; Nothing Really Does’; well, almost. But politics does matter. This is discussed in the last chapter.

Some of the material in this chapter is reproduced from papers written by the author and published in The Indian Journal of Agricultural Economics, The Economic and Political Weekly (reproduced with the permission of the journal editors), and in publications of CIGI, Indian Statistical Institute and OECD. These are all acknowledged.