NEW ECONOMIC POLICY 17
what the government advisers believe would be our equilibrium configuration if there were no such monitoring. Just as our socialistic pattern was far. from socialism, so is our liberalisation far from a system of free markets.
The reason for making this point is the following. The new policy is often seeking justification in its claim of cutting out all the bureaucracy, red tape and corruption associated with our system of controls. If the new policy keeps the entire structure of intervention, overseeing and monitoring in tact and only replaces a set of priorities by another, then such claims need be taken only lighdy. Its evaluation then must come from a strict comparison between the economic strategy of planned development with the public sector at the apex and a strategy of development with reliance on the demand from the rich, and the consequent derived demand. It is true that our planned economy was beset with the problems of bureaucracy and corruption, and it will remain equally true of our new economy that makes private consumption and initiative as the cornerstone. So, I suppose a relative evaluation of the two strategies should be undertaken strictly on the strength of their economic merits and viability, short of all rhetoric about corruption, efficiency, bureaucratic hurdles and the red tape.
Once this is s?id, I believe the task is done, for we have debated in this country and elsewhere the relative merits of a course of planned development and one which relies on private initiative alone.
1. See Axnal Sanyal "Accumulating changes in the nature of controls in the Indian Economy^* Social Scientist, May 1984, pp: 33-42.
2. See the Economic Survey 1984-85 : Ministry of Finance, Government of India, pp: 128-129.
3. The source for this statement is the Union Budget, Govt. of India, relevant years.
4. The Unwn Budget, Govt. of India, nos. since *79-*80. Also Economic Survey : Govt. of India 1984-85.
5. Prabhat Patnaik: "Market Question and Capitalist Development in India" Economic and Political Weekly, Annual Number . August 1984, pp: 1251-1260.
6. See for example a statement by Mr. Siddharta Sankar Ray, ex-Chief Minister, West Bengal,] reported in Indian Express, January 23, F976, also referred to by K.N. Raj "Growth and' Stagnation in Indian Industrial Development", Economic and Political Weekly, Annual No. 1976.