DEVELOPMENT AND PLANNING IN INDIA by AJIT KUMAR SINGH

This volume contains seventeen papers dealing with different aspects of development and planning in India. The papers have been arranged under four sections. dealing with Planning in Mixed Economy, India China Comparison, Development Strategy and Policy and Recent Developments in Indian Economy.

The first section contains five papers dealing with the issues related to the nature of the mixed economy and the problems it poses for economic planning, Nehru’s idea of socialism and the mixed economy; state administration and plan implementation; the concept of good governance and its inter-relationship with transparency and right to information; and corruption and development.Section 2 contains three papers dealing with economic development in India and China in a comparative framework. Section 3 has five papers dealing with development strategy and policy. The papers question the appropriateness of the development model based on the Western Paradigm followed by the Indian planners. The issues related to liberalisation, growth strategy and the economic crisis of the early 1990s and the social consequences of the new economic policies have been examined. The relationship between population growth and economic development has been analysed in a historical perspective.

Section 4 contains four papers dealing with recent developments in the Indian economy. The papers critically examine the assumptions behind the demographic dividend hypothesis and tried to assess to what extent India is in a position to tap the potential demographic dividend; the rationale and the impact of demonetization on the Indian economy; the feasibility of the goal of making India a 5 trillion economy by 2024-25; and shortcomings of the methodology followed by the NitiAyog in preparation of the National Multidimensional Poverty Index.

The book will be of great interest for the policy makers, scholars and general public interested in the problems of development and planning in India.

Professor Ajit Kumar Singh (b.1944) obtained his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in Economics from the University of Lucknow, Lucknow. He has over fifty years experience as a teacher and researcher in economics. He has taught at the University of Lucknow and RML Avadh University, Faizabad. He joined the Giri Institute of Development Studies, Lucknow as Professor in 1987 and was Director of the Institute from 2004 to February 2013. He was awarded the National Fellowship of the Indian Council of Social Science Research in 2013. Prof. A.K. Singh has been  ce President, Regional Science Association 1990, President UP and Uttarakhand Economic Association 2007 and Vice President, Indian Society of Labour Economics, 2009. Presently he is vice president of the Agricultural Economics Research Association. In 2010 he was given the Kautilya award by the UP and Uttarakhand Economic Association for his contribution to teaching and research in economics.

He was member Taxation and Resource Mobilisation Committee, Government of U.P. (1995) and Member Second State Finance Commission, U.P. (2001-02).  He was also member of the Agrarian Relations Committee appointed by the Government of India and member of the Study Group for Preparation of Roadmap for Rapid Development of UP appointed by the Planning Commission. 

Prof. Singh has over 130 published papers to his credit apart from a large number of seminar papers. He has authored eleven books, which include Patterns of Regional Development; Economic Development and Inequalities in China, Rural Poverty and Agricultural Development; Land Use, Environment and Economic Growth in India; and Uttar Pradesh Development Report 2000; and Socio-Economic Conditions of the Farming Communities in Northern India, Patterns of Development; Agricultural Development and Natural Resource Management; Land Reforms and Rural Development; Regional Disparities in India; Dynamics of Development in a Backward Economy and Social Structure and Economic Development. In addition, he has edited five books: Economic Planning and Policy in India; Planning Strategy for a Developing Region; Twelfth Finance Commission Recommendations: Their Implications for the State Finances; Land Policies for Agricultural Growth With Equity; and Transparency, Disclosure and Governance.