onomi        lannin           4.7
     of the open door policy in 1985 to save the                  (iii) side by side setting numerical/quantitative
     economy. The Chinese open door policy was an                         targets (similar to the practice in the
     initiative in the direction of ‘market socialism’                    imperative planning) a set of economic
     under the communist political design (a popular                      policies of indicative nature is also
     student demand for political reform in favour of                     announced by the economies to realise
     democracy was ruthlessly repressed in Tiananmen                      the plan targets.
     Square in 1989). Similarly, the Soviet Union                  (iv) the indicative nature of economic policies,
     under the leadership of Mikhail Gorbachev began                      which are announced in such planning,
     a process of political and economic reforms, called
                                                                          basically encourage or discourage the
     prestroika (i.e., restructuring) and glasnost (i.e.,
                                                                          private sector in its process of economic
     openness) in 1985 to save the failed economic
                                                                          decision making.
     experiments in the state economy. Other East
     European economies followed similar economic                   After converting to a mixed economy by
     reforms from 1989 onwards. Thus, the whole                the mid-1940s, France commenced its first six
     world of the state economies had moved towards            year plan in 1947, which got popularity as the
     market economy by the late 1980s. Since then              Monnet Plan (he was the first chairman of the
     none of the countries have followed imperative            General Planning Commission and the then
     planning.                                                 Cabinet Minister for planning in France).16
                                                               Later, Monnet Plan became synonymous with
     2. Indicative Planning                                    indicative planning. This plan is also sometimes
     In the following two decades after the soviet             described as the basic sector planning as the
     planning commenced, the idea of planning got              government had selected eight basic industries
     attention from the democratic world. A time               as the core of development in which the nature
     came when some such economies started national            of planning was almost imperative, i.e., under
     planning. As they were neither state economies            state monopoly (these sectors were owned by the
     nor communist/socialist political systems, the            private sector till 1944 when France went for their
     nature of their planning was different from the           nationalisation).17 Other economic activities were
     command economies. Such planning has been                 open for private participation for which indicative
     termed as indicative planning by economists and           kind of policy-planning was essential. France as
     experts. The identifying features of indicative           well as Japan have followed indicative planning
     planning may be summed up as under:                       with great success. It was in 1965 that the UK
           (i) every economy following the indicative          commenced such a planning with the National
                planning were mixed economies.                 Plan and abandoned in 1966 after being overtaken
         (ii) unlike a centrally planned economy               by events (a balance of payment crisis resulting in
                (countries following imperative planning)
                                                                 16.   George Albert Steiner, Government’s Role in
                indicative planning works through the                  Economic Life, McGraw-Hill, New York, 1953, p. 152.
                market (price system) rather than replaces       17.   India had a French influence on its development
                it.15                                                  planning when it followed almost state monopoly in
                                                                       the six infrastructure industries also known as the core
       15.    Collins Internet-linked Dictionary of Economics,         or the basic industries, i.e., cement, iron and steel, coal,
              Glasgow, 2006.                                           crude oil, oil refinery and electricity.