ABSTRACT
The book that follows concerns the various dilemmas that I, as a policy economist of steel, have faced and suffered in the three decades of my life in the Joint Plant Committee, hereafter the JPC. The JPC was set up in 1964 to “fix” prices of the steel items sold to Indian consumers; though, the JPC never really controlled the prices of steel, it calculated the fair prices of steel and suggested that the steel plants under the Steel Authority of India, or SAIL, the public sector holding company, and the only private sector company, Tata Iron and Steel Company, or TISCO, should follow them. These prices did what prices always do, namely decide what to produce, how much to produce, for whom to produce, how to produce and even when to produce. The JPC, despite being an entity set up by the Government of India, was mandated to play the understudy of the yet to develop market forces and not to curb the free market. To the best of my knowledge, the JPC is a unique organization that does not have a counterpart anywhere else in the world.
