Regulation and development: India's policy experience of control over industry

It may be useful to begin by describing what the study attempts to do and even more so, perhaps, by making clear what it does not seek to do. It is not intended to be a comprehensive and fully documented review of the evolution of industrial policy and of the concomitant procedural changes; nor does it seek to review, in any depth, the impact of these policies on the structure and growth of Indian industries over the last three decades.

The main focus of the study is to trace the evolution of national thinking on major issues of industrial policy, under lining the continuity as well as the shifts in emphasis over a period of time. An interesting feature which emerges in this context is that beginning with the writings of early Indian economists like Dadabhoy Nowroji, G. V. Joshi and others a strong undercurrent of thinking in favour of State intervention can be clearly observed. Over a period of years, the nature and scope of intervention by the State was elaborated; but even prior to independence, the dominant and regulatory role of the State with regard to industrial development had been accepted.