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.