ABSTRACT
After Independence, the policy-makers have sought to transform a backward peasant economy into a modern industrialised country by recourse to economic planning. The policies of economic development framed after India attained independence, were influenced by the new economic and social philosophy which was sweeping the world after the Second World War. The Indian planning was deeply influenced by the Soviet economic planning and the growth models constructed by Western economists. The liberalisation of the economy has compounded the problem and has prematurely pushed Indian agriculture into global markets without a level playing field. The problem of poverty and unemployment in the country has its roots in the agriculture becoming a totally unremunerative occupation causing huge rural distress. India faces a huge burden of population which puts severe pressure on its overstretched resources. People need to reorient economic policies and fix their governance system if the country is to make genuine progress and provide good quality of life to its people.
