Mahavira Jain Vidyalaya Rajat Jayanti Mahotsava

Author(s): Mahavir Jain Vidyalaya Mumbai
Publisher: Mahavir Jain Vidyalay

Page 197

P FOR PLANNING OF INDIAN ECONOMIC LIFE
By K. U. BARODIA. R.COM.
Planning is the order of the day. The Government of India has already appointed a committee for the post-war economic problems. The Indian National Congress, the only body which reflects the national will and the national desire, had also appointed the National Planning Committee under the presidentship of Pandit Nehru. It did some very useful spade work but before it could be completed, the Congress resigned offices and the war eclipsed the good work of planning. Planning Movement started in Europe and America long before and it is but proper ior us, even at this late hour, to give our attention to the problems of our Indian Economic Life. In doing so we need not all be socialists, neither is it necessary for us to be graduates in Economics.
The salient features of our economic life are too well known to be mentioned here in detail. Our population must be in the neighbourhood of 40 crores, which is next only to China. The rapid increase in population with decreasing pace of production of material goods has several important implications. India is even to-day mainly an agricultural country and about 75% of its population is directly connected with the future of Indian Agriculture. It is, again, a well-known fact that more than 90% of the population stays in the seven lacs of villages of India. The pressure on land is tremendously increasing. Indian Agriculture is a deficit economy already and the increasing population with no outlet for Industrial employment makes the position of the agriculture very piteous. Indian agriculture is a problem of problems which will confound and perplex not only the economists but the State also in the future. The Industrial policy of India in peace or during war has remained much the same. The tempo of Industrial development has not changed to any remarkable degree. Neither the Eastern Group Conference nor the Roger Mission nor the slogan of India - the arsenal of the East' has effected any basic changes in our Industrial structure. The same old halfhearted, shy, faltering and sluggish policy of Discriminating Protection remains unchanged. This makes the solution of our economic problems all the more difficult. The people are not drawn or pulled towards the cities and
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