4 SOCIAL SCIENTIST private investment by extending the markets of private industrialists directly and indirectly.4 Hence in actual practice the public sector took on the high risk, basic industries with long gestation periods and low present rates of return and provision of infrastructure, while the rest was virtually left to the private sector with large-scale protection and import control. Given this emphasis on basic and capital goods industries and infrastructure such as utilities, communication and so on, which tend to be highly capital intensive, not much stress was laid on the role of the public sector as a major employer of labour. It is only in recent years, in view of the persistence of poverty and rising levels of unemployment, that interest has been shown in the employment generating potential of public expenditure.5 In this paper we enquire into the size and growth of public sector employment and study the changes in its pattern in the post-independence period. An attempt is also made to examine trends in real earnings of public sector employees to see how they have fared during this period. We deal with employment in the first part and earnings in the second. DATA BASE The public sector here includes all instruments of government activity such as a) administration covering central, state and local authorities; b) departmental undertakings such as the railways, and posts and telegraphs; c) non-departmental enterprises which are run as autonomous bodies wholly or largely owned by the government (quasi-government undertakings). Data on employment in the organized sector is collected under the Employment Market Information (EMI) scheme of the Ministry of Labour. It covers a) the entire public sector and b) non-agricultural establishments in the private sector employing 10 or more persons. Employment in defence forces, Indian embassies/ missions abroad and under crash schemes for rural employment as well as casual/contract labour are excluded from the purview of the EMI.6 This basic source of information is supplemented by other sources such as the Indian Labour Yearbook, Indian Labour Statis" tics, Annual Reports on the Working of Industrial and Commercial Undertakings of the Central Government and Central Census of Government Employees. Although the EMI scheme was initiated during the second plan period, data are available only from 1960-61. For the public sector alone similar information was collected for 1958.7 In respect of certain individual public sector undertakings such as the rail-