Todays *must read* is this piece by TN Ninan on how it was in the 70s (thanks again, to my friend Sanjay!) This is especially for the 90s generation who never experienced theses times (but whose parents will find all this familiar).. Those were the days... A brief excerpt below.... जय हिंद, जय भारत! - शांतनु *** The turning point in Indias economic policy came shortly before Business Standard was born; in 1974. Over the previous five years, Indira Gandhi had nationalised 14 big banks, the general insurance companies, coking coal mines and then non-coking coal mines. The monopolies law had been passed, and shackles put on the big Indian business houses. .... The result? Bajaj Auto, being part of a monopoly house, was not allowed to expand production, though it had a waiting list for its scooters that stretched for nine long years. If you wanted a groom for your daughter, you sometimes had to offer the chap the scarce commodity called a Bajaj scooter as inducement. .... And when Indira Gandhi took charge as finance minister, after sacking Morarji Desai, she used the 1970 Budget to jack up the maximum income tax rate to more than 97 per cent. If you added the effect of the wealth tax, anyone with some wealth found his combined income and wealth tax burden totalling more than 100 per cent of his income on the margin. .... The Premier (earlier Fiat) cars that the babus preferred had the lowest price, naturally, and the babus gave themselves preferential quotas. They were also allowed (by themselves!) to sell their quota cars after three years. Because of the shortage, the resale price in the market for a three-year-old car was more than the controlled price of a new one; so the babus could replace their old car with a new one every three years, and have some money left over. ....Meanwhile, if you wanted to go out of the country, you were allowed all of $8. For this you had to fill out a P form, stand in queue at a Reserve Bank counter, then come back some hours or a day or two later to collect your precious foreign exchange. In this socialist haven, labour laws had been tightened and trade unionists agitated against the use of computers, on the ground that they would reduce employment (ironic, given what was to follow)... *** Do read it in full...It is eye-opening...
Posted on: Tue, 28 Oct 2014 15:30:37 +0000
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