IMPLICATIONS OF NEW ECONOMIC POLICY 19 die first of several instalments to come. Given past experience—between 1980-81 and 1984-85— actual budget deficits exceeded budget estimates by 72 per cent on the average. One expert has suggested Rs 6000 crores as a realistic estimate of the deficit for 1985-86.3 With sharp increases in liquidity brought about by rapid annual increases in money supply during the Sixth Plan period, and the fact admitted by the Government's Economic Survey 1984-85 that '....our options in respect of importing commodities in short supply are likely to be constrained because of external loans incurred during the previous plan', the dangerous inflationary potential of a deficit of this order should be obvious.4 The budget carried several notes of cheer besides its tax concessions for the large corporate sector, especially the monopoly houses. These include delicensing of 25 industries and the raising of the asset limit for MRTP Act coverage to Rs 100 crores from the persent figure ofRs 20 crores. The thrust? towards liberalisation of industrial policy was also reflected in the further liberalisation of imports including reduction of customs dudes on capital equipment imports and the concessions offered to foreign capital. The government's initiatives in industrial policy include the policy for the electronics industry, the textile industry nd the drug industry besides a host of liberalising measures. The policy for the electronics industry envisages both massive inflow of foreign technology and a considerable expansion in computerisation of the domestic economy. The Department of Electronics has identified fifteen new major areas for large scale computerisation. Included among them are agriculture, energy, finance, sick units and the public sector as a whole.5 The output of the electronics industry is slated to increase five fold during the Seventh Plan period from Rs 2000 crores in 1985 to Rs 10,000 crores in 1990.6 Computerisation of the banking industry is already under way and railways are also going in for massive computerisation with World Bank assistance. MRTP and FERA companies have been allowed to expand freely and diversify into the electronics industry.7 The new textile policy has lifted all restrictions on capacity expansion in the mili sector and reduced excise duty on man-made fibres in order to promote a multi-fibre policy. The obligation to produce controlled cloth has been shifted to the handloom sector. The Government has declared that it would not take over mills which fall sick, but rather allow them to close, even if this means large scale retrenchment. The objective seems to be to encourage production' of clothing for the elite at lower costs, regardless of its implications for employment and for industrial concentration. The policy on drug industry reverses even the marginal move in the direction of curbs and price controls on drug companies represented by the Drug control Order of 1979. Not only has the Hathi Committee Report on the Drug Industry (which recommended nationalisation of transnational corporations in the Indian Drug industry) been ignored, but the Government has moved sharply in the opposite direction. Price control in drugs is to be limited to a small basket of 95 life-saving drugs alone, as opposed to the 360 bulk drugs and formulations based on them covered in the 1979 Act7