There was rapid growth of industries during the first two decades of planned development. Many new industries were started. Beginnings were also made of heavy machine-building and heavy engineering industries. Public sector has expanded rapidly since independence.
During the First and Second Five-Year Plans (1951-1952 to 1960-1961) there was remarkable “growth and diversification ” of industries. Development of industries was “markedly uneven” during the years of the Third Five-Year Plan (I961-1966) and the subsequent Annual Plans (I966-1969). In the Fourth Five-Year Plan the policy in the industrial field shifted from “growth with stability” to “growth with justice”. The industrial programmes were so framed as to rectify “imbalances in the industrial structure and to bring about the maximum utilization of capacity already built up”.
The steel plants, set up at Rourkela, Bhilai, and Durgapur during the Second Five-Year Plan, are under the management of the State-owned Hindustan Steel Company at Ranchi. The fifth steel plant has been established at Bokaro with Russian collaboration.
There has been rapid growth of small-scale industries during the past decade. The number of small-scale industries “registered on a voluntary basis” with the industries directorates of the States and Union Territories increased from about 36,000 in 1961 to about 3.18 lakhs on 31st December, 1972.
Economic Planning
The complex problems of modern times and the influences of the Second World War created in India, as in most other countries, an almost universal impulse towards a planned reconstruction of the entire pattern of economic life.
A National Planning Committee was constituted towards the end of 1938, at the instance of the Indian National Congress, under the Chairmanship of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. It consisted of fifteen members together with representatives of the Provincial Governments and such Indian States as chose to join it. But this Committee languished, owing to the change in the political situation after the outbreak of the war and the resignation of the Congress Ministries, and it did not resume its work until September, 1945. Several other plans for economic reconstruction were later formulated, such as the Bombay Plan, the People’s Plan, the Gandhian Plan, besides the Provincial plains, the plans of the Departments of the Central Government, plans for major industries, and plans of Indian States. Broadly speaking, the objectives of planning were “to raise the general standard of living of the people as a whole and to ensure useful employment for all” by the development of the resources of the country to the maximum extent possible, and by the distribution of national wealth in an equitable manner. Early in June, 1941, the Government of India formed a Post-War Reconstruction Committee. On 26th October, 1946, it announced the appointment of an Advisory Planning Board, which, in its Report of January, 1947, emphatically expressed the opinion that the “proper development of large-scale industries” can only take place if political units, whether Provinces or States, agree to work in accordance with a common plan. But the state of affairs in industry continued to be disquieting for several reasons, one of which was the continuance of strained relations between labour and management.
The Government of India appointed a Planning Commission in Match 1950, to draw up a blueprint of development by considering the resources and needs of the country. The First Five-Year Plan was worked from 1951-1952 to 1955-1956 with the objects of removing the dis-equilibrium caused by the Second World War and partition of the country and to start simultaneously a process of all-round balanced development. The aim of the Second Five-Year Plan (1956-1957 to 1960-1961) was to promote a pattern of development for establishment of a socialistic pattern of society in India. The Third Five-Year Plan (1961-1962 to 1963-1966) “aimed at securing a marked advance towards self-sustaining growth”. The Fourth Five-Year Plan (April, 1969 to March, 1974) sought to accelerate the tempo of development “in conditions of stability, at reducing fluctuations in agricultural production as well as the uncertainties of foreign aid”. The Fifth Five-Year Plan, formally inaugurated in April, 1974, had a comprehensive porgramme for development of economic conditions of the country. The two major aims to be realised were the removal of poverty and attainment of economic self-reliance.
Labour
The war had tremendous repercussions on labour in India. Abnormal economic conditions largely the result of an unprecedented rise in the cost of living, caused an insistent demand for better conditions, which had mostly to be satisfied by increases in wages, grants of dearness allowances and bonuses, and the introduction of pension scheme, provident funds, and more scientific systems of payment.
This period was marked by a growing sense of responsibility for the improvement of the lot of the ordinary worker in this country, resulting in important labour legislation. The Factories Amendment Act, passed in April, 1946, and enforced from Ist August, reduced maximum working hours per week from 54 to 48, and from 60 to 50 in perennial and seasonal factories respectively. It fixed the maximum daily hours of work at 9 and 10 respectively. The Act also prescribed uniform rates of payment for overtime work both in perennial and seasonal factories, amounting to double the ordinary rate. According to the Industrial Employment (Standing Orders) Act of 1946, owners of industrial establishments in British India, employing a hundred or more workers, were required to define clearly the conditions of service and to have these duly certified by an officer appointed for this purpose either by the Central Government or by the Provincial Government as the case might be. The Workmen’s Compensation Act of 1946, amended in 1947, made workmen compensation wages up to the maximum limit of Rs. 400 a month entitled to compensation for injuries sustained in the course of their employment, and laid down a scale of compensation for workers earning between Rs. 300 and Rs. 400. The Indian National Government passed some important Acts regarding industrial relations, social insurance, and improvement in conditions of work. The Provincial Governments were also alive to their responsibilities in relation to labour and industries; as a specific example may be mentioned the Bombay Industrial Relations Act (1946), which aimed at the regulation and rapid settlement of labour disputes by the establishment of labour courts and also of joint committees of management and labour in industrial establishments. Several other important steps were also taken by the Central and the Provincial Governments to harmonise industrial relations. At a Conference in 1947, representatives of employers, employees and the Government came to a unanimous decision to maintain industrial peace and to avoid lock-outs strikes, and slowing down of production for the next three years. The various adjudication awards and recommendations of the Conciliation Board also aimed at securing cordial industrial relations. For instance, the recommendations of the Board of Conciliation (1947) which investigated the causes of industrial disputes in the coalfield areas of Bengal and Bihar, were hailed as a “new deal for coal-miners”. They provided for the improvement of the conditions of a class of workers whose interests had been neglected in the past.
