IIPA tough nut

‘Arrest downward trend of industrial output’, screamed the headline of a report in The Times of India dated August 15, 1947(ET began in 1961). The report dwelt on how the industrial share market was cheerless at the onset of India’s independence. Cut to 2007, where the government is trying to rein in the galloping industrial production that threatens to overheat the economy. Still, there are similarities in the issues being faced by our policy makers.Cut to August 15, 1947.

“Industrialists have been complaining that provincial governments have been going out of their way to push up the wage structure (of workers) without securing any guarantee from them about production,” said the news report. Also sample this — “For instance, the freight from Orissa to London for Nux Vomica seeds is about the same as that paid by the manufacturers in Calcutta for bringing seeds from Orissa.