Twenty five years of economic reforms in India: Retrospect and prospects

2016 marks twenty five years of economic liberalisation in India. The circumstances that led to the historic initiatives leading to the economic reforms from 1991 are well documented. Because of the paradigm shift in the developmental thinking and movements towards market forces, dissenting voices against the economic liberalisation were quite prevalent during that time.

In 1991, an event for discussing the various shades of the consequent reform process was organised by Observer Research Foundation and Indian Institute of Management Calcutta. Luminaries present in the meeting included, the architects of reforms — Manmohan Singh, P. Chidambaram, P. N. Dhar, R. K. Mishra as Founder-Chairman of ORF; other prominent figures from the leftist schools — politicians like Jyoti Basu, Ashok Mitra, Ashim Dasgupta, Gurudas Dasgupta; academicians Amit Bhaduri and S. L. Rao.

A quarter of a century has passed and various institutional changes have taken place. Some have turned out to be a success, while some are not, and while many others need a deeper analysis to come to a specific inference. The emergence of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) has revolutionised the global economic order, and has played a major role in the advent of India in the global political-economic scenario. There have been revolutions in the domains of finance and banking, infrastructure, trade, education, social sector, among others.

The objectives of this conference are:

• To commemorate the 1991 reforms, look at the past 25 years, and review the rights and wrongs,

• To review the business-as-usual pathways, and where would the Indian economy land up by following such a pathway over the next 25 years, and

• To debate the alternate future pathways for the Indian economy for sustainable development.

The issues that will be discussed for the two days include: challenges in policy making; public finance; infrastructure; energy, environment and climate change; industry, land and labour; International trade and financial liberalisation; and agricultural value chain in a liberalising world.