After nearing 25 years, does India needs reforms once again.
It is now 64 years since India got independence from colonial rule in 1947. After British left the responsibility fell on the shoulders of our political leaders to develop India. At that time India was suffering from illiteracy, poverty, health hazards, and many social and economical problems. Addition to this, war had caused India to suffer economically.
Keeping in mind, the social and economical problems of post independence India, the new government headed by Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru adopted socialist model of development for India.
The new government realized that if India has to be developed, it really needed large public sector investment which gave birth to the public sector undertakings that are crucial for the growth of the country.
However, by later eighties, India suffered from huge margin of budget deficit and other economic problems that cumulatively resulted in 1991's economic reforms.
In fact government was able to reduce fiscal deficit by a little margin which was touching the sky high level before the reforms brought out. India economic position during 1991 was worst due to its incapability to raise funds for the growing population.
It was the time when India needed the economic reforms most during 1990 to stand in competitive world to adopt the growing needs of technology.
It was already known that, it would not give immediate results as expected from privatization, liberalization and globalization process which was a time taking process. After the adopting the economic reforms, India slowly started making improvement in economic status.
In 2003-04 India's growth rate was 8%, which was as high as other emerging countries of the world. Foreign direct investment was a record high in India after the economy was opened up during 1990's.
India's literacy level improved, living standard of people has been raised, and Indians are using modern technology and quality products at affordable prices. The report of survey of economic growth showed that India will be a developed country by 2040, if it continues the progress in same way in near future.
However, things are once again Indian economy is in bad shape. Now India is struggling to retain its position in competitive world. For last five years, India's economy is badly battered by the global crisis. This is not the only reason for India's downgrading economy.
Now inner problems of county are most important factor for diminishing the economic growth. If global crisis was the only cause, then China and other emerging countries too would not have been making improvement in their economy. This however is not the case.
India's inner problems such as corruption, poor implementation of policies, waste of capital, time land and manpower etc are also responsible for the slow down on our economy.
The corruption perception index 2013 indicates that India ranked 94 among 177 countries. In fact India has been ranked 98th in Forbes list in world's best countries for doing business among 145 countries in the world. The main reason behind India's poor ranking is due to poverty, corruption, discrimination, which government has failed to control.
India's developing economy needs proper implementation of policies and bring out those policies, which can boost export sector and should produce attractive products which can bring down increasing import.
India needs reforms in the political and ideological perception of governance. Whatever the policies our country has are enough to bring our economy out of crisis, but we need proper implementation of such policies.
Some critics point out that globalization is impediment for development as its pushing back our economy into the hands of alien people. This is not true; a proper balance by adopting the mixed economy of capitalism and socialism can lead India to the path of development.
India as such do not need new reforms, the need is to deliver those reforms set in motion earlier in right direction towards the stated goals.
Sneha Pawar
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