Economic reforms and sustainable development in India

Economic reforms were initiated in India with the inception of the New Economic Policy of 1991. At that time Indian economy was passing through the worst ever economic crisis faced by country after the independence. The reforms, which were introduced, marked a clear shift in the economic policy pursued so far. Reforms were aimed at setting economy free from excessive government control and transform it into a market oriented, liberal, open, and the one dominated by the private sector. The supporters of reforms emphatically asserted that this will bring efficiency, transparency, and ensure higher economic growth for the years to come. In the post-reform period of more than two decades, India has been somewhat successful in achieving higher GDP growth rates and improvement has been witnessed in the areas like telecommunication, transportation, consumer goods industry etc. However, the effect of reforms failed to trickle down and resulted in skewed and lopsided growth which has put a question mark on the sustainability of the development that has taken place so far. This paper attempts to inspect the effects of reform form the point view of environmental and social sustainability.