Indian Economy: Reforms and Development

The book presents a comprehensive study of the impact of policy reforms on output, employment, and productivity growth across sectors of India since 1991. It showcases varied responses from different sectors as they faced different degrees of policy interventions, and challenges or opportunities as regards markets, technology, and availability of skills and other complementary resources. The book also discusses the contributions of the service sector on India’s GDP and employment. The book throws light on the phenomena of rising inequality and persistent poverty which continues to shadow and be a hallmark of post-reform India, despite high economic growth. It underlines the failure of these reforms to bring about major change in social and economic organizations and institutions. The book’s contents stress on the criticality of addressing these issues as they have a serious potential of jeopardizing the country’s ability to maintain high growth momentum. With thesepertinent topics, the book would be of interest not only to the research community, but also to policy makers and practitioners of various sectors addressed here.

Pradip Kumar Biswas is Associate Professor at College of Vocational Studies (CVS), Delhi University, where he has been teaching since 1990. He did his MSc in Economics from the University of Calcutta, and MPhil and PhD from Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), Delhi. He has worked as a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the university UTAD, Portugal during 2009-10 and as a Senior Principal Scientist at CSIR-NISTADS Delhi during 2011-13. His research areas include MSME, agriculture, organisation, innovation, rural development, environment and industry. His works have been published in several Indian and international refereed journals, edited books and reports. He has published a book, ‘Rural Industrialisation in West Bengal: Institutions, Innovations and Growth’ (Manak Publishers, Delhi), and co-edited a book, ‘India: Science and Technology, Volume 3’ (CSIR-NISTADS).

Panchanan Das is Professor of Economics at the Department of Economics of the University of Calcutta, and teaches advanced econometric theory and analysis of cross section, time series and panel data. Development economics, Indian economics, and applied macroeconomics are the broad research areas of Prof. Das. He has published several articles in referred journals like Economic and Political Weekly, Asian Development Review, Indian Journal of Labour Economics, The Journal of Income and Wealth, Int. J. Management Concepts and Philosophy, The Bangladesh Development Studies, The Journal of Industrial Statistics, and Journal of Quantitative Economics. He is a principal author of ‘Economics I and Economics II’, and ‘Microeconomics I and Statistics’, published by Oxford University Press, New Delhi. He is a major contributor of West Bengal Development Report – 2008, published by Academic Foundation, New Delhi, in collaboration with the Planning Commission, Government of India. He has also contributed in edited volumes published by Routledge, Springer, Edward Elgar, and Science and Technology volume of the CSIR.