3.10 ndian onom
1. Infrastructural Needs areas have obvious government monopolies—as
in power, railways, aviation, telecommnication,
Every economy whether it is agrarian, industrial
or post-industrial, needs suitable levels of etc.
infrastructure such as power, transportation and 2. Industrial Needs
communication. Without their healthy presence
and expansion, no economy can grow and develop. India had opted for the industrial sector as its
At the eve of Independence, India was prime moving force, as we saw in the earlier pages.
having almost no presence of these three basic Now there were some areas of industries which
requirements. There was just a beginning in the the government had to invest in, due to several
area of railways, and post and telegraph. Power compulsive reasons. For industrialisation to take
was restricted to selective homes of government place, the presence of certain industries is essential
and the princely states. [It means, even if India (these industries have been called in the country
had opted for agriculture as its prime moving by different names—basic industries, infrastructure
force, it had to develop the infrastructure sector.] industries, core industries, core sector). To the initial
These sectors require too much capital group of six industries, in 2013 two new industries
investment as well as heavy enginering and (Natural Gas and Fertilisers) were added. The
technological support for their development. combined weight of these eight industries in
Expansion of the infrastructure sector was the new series of Index of Industrial Production
considered not possible by the private sector of (IIP) is 40.27 per cent. These industries are (their
the time as they could possibly not manage the percentage weights in IIP given in brackets)21:
following components: 1. Refinery products (11.29)
(i) heavy investment (in domestic as well as 2. Electricity (7.99)
foreign currencies), 3. Steel (7.22)
(ii) technology, 4. Coal (4.16)
(iii) skilled manpower, and 5. Crude Oil (3.62)
(iv) entrepreneurship. 6. Natural Gas (2.77)
Even if these inputs were available to the 7. Cement (2.16)
private sector, it was not feasible for them as there
8. Fertilisers (1.06)
was no market for such infrastructure. These
infrastructures were essential for the economy, Similar to the infrastructure sector, these
but they needed either subsidised or almost basic industries also require high level of capital,
free supply as the masses lacked the market- technology, skilled manpower and articulation
determined purchasing capacity. Under these in entrepreneurship which was again considered
typical condition, it was only the government not feasible for the private sector of the time to
which could have shouldered the responsibility. manage. Even if the private sector supplied goods
The government could have managed not only the from the ‘basic industries’, they might not be able
inputs required for the development of the sector, 21. The revised Index of Industrial Production (IIP) was
but could also supply and distribute them to the released by the central Statistics Office (CSO) on
needy areas and the consumers for the proper 12th May 2017. Aimed at capturing the structural
growth of the economy. There were no alternatives changes in the economy and improve the quality of
representation, the revision includes many things such
and that is why the infrastructure sector in India as—shifting the base year to 2011-12 from 2004-05,
has such a dominant state presence that many changes in the basket of commodities and their weights.