4 SOCIAL SCIENTIST purpose. These measures were adopted on the premise that decisions which affect the whole economy should not be taken by individuals. Instead, the decision-making power about matters such as the distribution of capacity, import requirements, product-mix and the like among the different sectors, and the distribution of industrial development among the different regions, should rest with the government. The basic purpose of the Industries (Development arid Regulation) Act (IDRA) was to prevent lopsided development of the economy and to introduce an element of public decision-making into the industrial field so as to ensure the fulfilment of social priorities. It has been argued that the structure and form of the government itself influence, to a large extent, the location of economic activity in the country.1 The state governments in India do not possess any licensing authority regarding industrial concerns. It is only the licensing policy of the Central Government which decides the regional distribution of industries and thus determines the degree of industrial development in different regions. Goals of Industrial Policy Rapid industrial growth, import substitution, monopoly control, prevention of concentration of economic power and the reduction of inequalities in industrial development among the different regions have been the declared objectives of industrial policy in India among which the regional dispersal of industries and the reduction of disparities in industrial development have been quite prominent. The IDRA 1951 provided the opportunity for governmental control over the l6cation of industrial units. Section 11 (2) of IDRA 1951 provided that every licensee should state in particular the '"conditions as to the location of the undertaking"2 for which the licence is bein^ sought. Further on, section 12 gives the government the authority of revoking a licence if it is not implemented according to the conditions on which it has been issued. Section 13-1 (E) again puts a check: "No owner of an industrial undertaking shall change the location of the whole or any part of an industrial undertaking which has been registered553 without prior approval of the government. These provisions were aimed at controlling the location of industry so that a better regional balance of industrial development could be achieved.4 In this connection, two important points merit careful consideration: it was thought that the initial choice of location should rest with the individual entrepreneur. as3uming that he would always look for the optimum location; and the final decision as to location was to rest with the government which had the authority either to approve the proposed location or to reject it. This was implicit in the provisions that the government would use this authority to prevent further agglomeration in the established centres of industrial activity and thus promote the dispersal of industries among the regions. This was made more explicit in the