National Reform Agenda: Post Modi 1 year Update

Introduction

My January 2014 paper titled “National Reform Agenda for Growth and Welfare” proposed a reform agenda for the five years of the Government that would be formed after the General Election in May 2014.[i]  At that time, a number of pre-election Pols predicted that the BJP-NDA could be the largest party-coalition in the Lok Sabha, there was far from consensus on how far they would be from a majority. Thus the paper can be taken as an objective assessment, given the data and information available till that time, on what needed to be done. 

    A recent paper, titled “National Reform Agenda: Year One of Modi Government,” by the author, Evaluates the actions taken on the issues reaised and suggestions made in the January 2014 paper.[ii] There were three main sections in the Agenda(January 2014)[iii]: The Broad Objectives and aims, Reviving Growth by correcting the mistakes made in the previous four years, with particular reference to Governance, and Economic & Institutional reforms for putting growth on a sustained fast growth path. The paper, uses the same format and headings as in the earlier note, and considers each of the 15-16 sets of issues and suggestions. In each case the action taken by the Modi government is listed and commented on, followed by further suggestions. The first broad suggestion and the conclusions are reproduced here to give a flavor of the paper:

Objective: Closing Welfare Gap

Issue: Welfare Gap It is the gap between our per capita GDP (at PPP) and the World average, which (along with corrupt governance systems) results in our having higher poverty ratios and worse social welfare indicators than those of better off countries. The fundamental objective of any Indian government must be to close the welfare gap of the Indian people with the rest of the World.  This will require a restoration of per capita growth to 6.5% (~ 8% GDP growth) and policies to sustain this growth rate.  If we can sustain such growth for two and a half decades, Indian welfare levels will equal the rest of the world by 2040.

Action Taken: This government seems to understand the critical link between economic growth, employment generation and public welfare. This is reflected in the change in focus from “poverty alleviation” to “poverty elimination” and economic & technological development and employment creation as the principle instrument for achieving it. Another indicator is that it has adopted, as its principle foreign policy objective, the need to close the economic and technological gap with the rest of the World.

        The other issues and suggestions range from reform of laws passed in the last few years, to Governance and corruption issues and Policy and Institutional reforms to put economic growth on a sustained low inflation fast growth path. (for details see policy paper).

Conclusion

 The January 2014 paper suggested that, “It is not necessary to accomplish all the listed reforms within three years, though it may be opportune to take the politically sensitive steps within the first few years.  It is however essential to outline the broad direction of reforms and to take credible steps to implement them.”

  The government has taken action in virtually all the areas suggested by the paper. Thus we can say that it has taken credible steps to implement the suggested reforms. There are undoubtedly a few areas in which action has not been initiated, but this is to be expected from any government. Good progress has been made in a majority of areas, with one exception. The performance on income tax reform issues has been dis-appointing.  Government has, however shown responsiveness by responding quickly to widespread protests on what were seen to be backward steps.

   Inflation has declined sharply from 11% in Oct-Dec, 2013 to 5.3% in Jan-Mar 2015 (CPI2012). Both food (weight 0.39) and Core (weight 0.54) have contributed to this decline, with food inflation down from 14.7% to 6.4% and core inflation from 8.7% to 4.5%. CPI Fuel (weight 0.68) inflation has actually risen from 1.6% to 2.3% because of lags in pass through.

  Economic Growth has accelerated by 0.4% to 0.6% in 2014-5 relative to 2013-14: 0.4% in the case of GDP which approximates what was earlier called GDPMP and by 0.6% in terms of Gross Value Added(GVA) which approximates what was earlier called GDPFC. This is a little lower than what the author had projected, based on the old GDP series.[iv] However, the decline in Inflation is much greater than any analyst (including the author) had forecast. Thus inflation as measured by the Private consumption deflator has declined from 8.5% in 2013-4 to 4.6% in 2014-15 and inflation as per the CPI2012 base has declined from 9.5% to 6.3%. The global factors that have aided the fall in inflation are the same ones that have slowed the recovery of World GDP and World demand for tradable goods and services and thus contributed to the slower recovery of the Globalized part of the Indian Corporate sector.  Thus to the extent that success in inflation control can be attributed to global developments, the same developments also resulted in slower recovery of GDP growth. 

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[i] Virmani, Arvind, “National Reform Agenda for Growth and Welfare,” Policy Paper No WsPP 1/2014. https://sites.google.com/site/drarvindvirmani/policy-papers   

[ii] Arvind Virmani, “National Reform Agenda: Year One of Modi Government,” Policy Paper No. WsPP 5/2015: https://sites.google.com/site/drarvindvirmani/policy-papers

[iii] Virmani(2014) op cit FN 1.

[iv] We had projected an increase of growth rate of GDPFC of 1% +/- 0.25 ie between 0.75% & 1.25%. Thus the actual increase in GVA is a little below this range.

Economic Reforms in Budget 2015-16

Introduction

    The Union budget has many objectives and constraints. My basic criterion for evaluation of the budget, or any other actions of the government, is very simple. Does it help in bringing about a sustained improvement in the Welfare of the average person and of the bottom 40 per cent of the population in particular? That is, will the measures taken or announced result in higher per capita GDP and less poverty ten years from now?  As this requires better policies and institutional reforms related to sustained economic growth, employment creation and efficient welfare transfers to the 40 per cent, it boils down to an identification of policies and institutional reforms that will achieve these objectives. Institutional reforms as defined in the economics literature includes the laws, regulations and rules that define a framework of incentives under which economic agents, including government bureaucrats and ministers operate.

Macro, Fiscal, Monetary Policy

     As per the new GDP series economic growth has revived over the last two years. This has been accompanied by and partly driven by an acceleration of private consumption growth and an acceleration in growth of Gross fixed capital formation. Inflation as measured by the implicit price deflator for consumption has declined sharply. However, corporate output growth has lagged the overall recovery, partly because of global demand and excess capacity in certain tradable sectors. However, sectors like automobiles, housing and real estate linked more closely to domestic demand have also contributed to the slow recovery.

       The Govt’s commitment to Federalism was amply demonstrated by the abolition of the Planning Commission and National Planning that inherently inclines towards centralized, “one size fits all” approach to programs and projects.   The fourteenth Finance Commission (FC14) recommendation for “increasing  the share of tax devolution to 42 per cent of the divisible pool..” complimented this approach, allowing a return to the fundamental principles of Federalism outlined in the constitution.  As the FC took account of the revenues and revenue expenditures of the States in deriving the new devolution norms an equivalent amount of revenue expenditures earlier incurred in Plan schemes on State and Concurrent Subjects under the administrative control of States (Education, Health, Welfare, Poverty, Irrigation, Roads etc.) could have been eliminated from the Central Budget.  However the Central Government “has decided to continue supporting important national priorities such as agriculture, education, health, MGNREGA, and rural infrastructure including roads”. One consequence of this decision is that the time path of fiscal consolidation supported by the Finance Commission, in terms of both fiscal deficit and revenue deficit targets will be exceeded in the next two years (New targets for FD are 3.9%, for 2015-16; 3.5% for 2016-17; and, 3.0% for 2017-18).

  Though many eminent economists support this decision to loosen fiscal policy, to stimulate demand, in my view a policy that adhered to the (earlier) fiscal targets through a greater reduction of revenue plan expenditures on State subjects, would have had a more positive effect on the economy and social welfare. This is primarily because it would have permitted a quicker easing of monetary policy in line with reduced inflation rates, giving a greater boost to demand for interest sensitive sectors like automobile, housing (consumer demand) and real estate (business).

   The budget speech indicated that Govt had signed the Monetary Policy Framework Agreement with the RBI. The agreed inflation target  of  less than  6%, will hopefully ensure an appropriate timing and phasing of monetary easing. The Govt’s intention to amend the RBI Act this year, to provide for a Monetary Policy Committee is one of the positive announcements in the budget speech.  My analysis indicates that the real repo rate is now at or close to previous peaks, and requires a reduction in the nominal rate by 1% to 2% points over the next 12 months. 

Subsidies & Expenditure

    In his budget speech the Finance Minister has proposed two new laws, which will help improve the efficiency of government expenditure and of government contracting and also reduce leakages and corruption (“malfeasance”). These include,

(1)       A procurement law and an institutional structure consistent with the UNCITRAL model.

(2)       A Public Contracts (Resolution of Disputes) Bill to streamline the institutional arrangements for resolution of such disputes

          The budget reiterated government’s welcome commitment to the “process of rationalizing subsidies” to create a “well targeted subsidy delivery” system that cuts “subsidy leakages, not subsidies themselves.”  The government also expressed its intention to bring in Mobile payments as a means of transferring subsidy benefits under the “JAM trinity.” There was however no indication of which subsidies would be rationalized after LPG, probably because it is political more appropriate to first work out a detailed implementation plan.

     The successful payment of govt scholarships through direct transfer to scholars bank accounts has encouraged Govt. to rethink how to ensure equal educational opportunity to all, irrespective of their financial situation. The budget proposal to create a “fully IT based Student Financial Aid Authority to administer and monitor Scholarship as well Educational Loan Schemes, through the Pradhan Mantri Vidya Lakshmi Karyakram, could be an important step in this direction.  However, it needs to be accompanied by two other shifts in Govts approach to Education. One, a shift from constructing and running Colleges & universities to regulating them more transparently & effectively and from Brick and Mortar Colleges to e-education that is digitally available in rural, hilly and remote areas.  

   The budget’s emphasis on social insurance for life, accident, old age health, assisted living and pensions also suggests the possibility of a new federal division of labor between the Central and State governments: The Central Government should focus on providing help to the poor & needy through insurance and other financial products that come under its purview, while the States are fully responsible for basic health, education, welfare, poverty & employment program that require an administrative set up down to the Panchayat & Nagarpalika level.  I hope the next budget will move more decisively in this direction.

Taxes

     FMs reiteration of the Govt’s determination to institute the GST  by April 2016, as a state-of-the-art indirect tax system, gives hope that this land mark tax reform will finally reach fruition and translate into efficiency improvements during the next two years.

    The FM also indicted to reform Corporate income taxation so as to make it competitive with other major Asian countries. Even though the effective tax rate in 2015-16 may increase marginally because of higher surcharges, a revenue neutral reduction in marginal tax rate to 25% along with a reduction in exemptions over the next 4 years , will contribute to an increase in competitiveness of modern industry & service sectors.

Reduction in the rate of income tax on royalty and fees for technical services from 25% to 10%, aligns it more closely with capital gains taxation and will strengthen voluntary compliance and reduce tax disputes.

Financial Sector

    The FM, in his budget speech proposed a number of institutional reforms that will help improve the transparency and credibility of the Indian Financial system and thus improve the flow of equity and long term debt form individual Indian investors into the formal financial system.  This in turn will help improve the efficiency of intermediation between savings and investment and thus improve the growth potential of the economy.

      The proposal to merge the Forwards Markets Commission with SEBI has been stymied by vested bureaucratic interests for decades.  A decisive PM-FM team has clearly helped in clearing this proposal to modernize the regulation of commodity forward markets and thus ensure that farmers truly benefit from forward markets in agriculture.  Enabling legislation, amending the Government Securities Act and the RBI Act is proposed in the Finance Bill, 2015

The setting up of Public Debt Management Agency (PDMA) to manage Govt’s internal & external debt has been approved by the Govt. Such an agency was first proposed in the late 1990s early 2000s to take over this function from RBI so as to remove the conflict of interest with RBIs primary one of monetary policy & financial stability. There was so much resistence in RBI that even the report had to be buried in a file. The approval of this agency is another example of this govts ability & willingness to take quick decisions.

Other institutional reforms include the establishment of a  Financial Redressal Agency grievance redressal viz all financial service providers, a Financial Data Management Centre, a Financial Sector Appellate Tribunal, and a Resolution Corporation.  An Indian Financial Code (IFC) for integrating financial laws rules and regulations is also to be introduce in Parliament for consideration.

Agriculture, Infrastructure, Industry

        The FM also announced a number of initiatives for reforming the policy frame work for Agriculture, Industry and Infrastructure, which will facilitate productive growth:

(a)    “To increase the incomes of farmers, it is imperative that we create a National agricultural market, which will have the incidental benefit of moderating price rises.  I intend this year to work with the States, in NITI, for the creation of a Unified National Agriculture Market.”

(b)    “Ports in the Public sector will be encouraged, to corporatize, and become companies under the Companies Act.” As this is needed to both attract investment as well as leverage the huge land resources lying unused with them.

(c)      “The Government also proposes to set up 5 new Ultra Mega Power Projects, each of 4000 MWs in the plug-and-play mode.  All clearances and linkages will be in place before the project is awarded by a transparent auction system.    The Government would also consider similar plug-and-play projects in other infrastructure projects such as roads, ports, rail lines, airports etc.” Thought the “plug and play approach” has been suggested before, the emphasis on “transparent auctions,” will enhance public support and credibility of such projects.

(d)    “To have a common approach and philosophy in the regulatory arrangements prevailing even within the different sectors of infrastructure.  Our Government, therefore, also proposes to introduce a regulatory reform law that will bring about a cogency of approach across various sectors of infrastructure.” This another law that has previously been stymied by inter-departmental disagreements.

(e)     “Bankruptcy law reform,  that brings about legal certainty and speed, has been identified as a key priority for improving the ease of doing business. We will bring a comprehensive Bankruptcy Code in fiscal 2015-16, that will meet global standards and provide necessary judicial capacity.  It was incredible that a New Companies Law did not address this issue properly and focused on issues peripheral to the healthy growth of modern Companies.

(f)     “Expert Committee to examine the possibility and prepare a draft legislation where the need for multiple prior permissions can be replaced with a pre-existing regulatory mechanism”

(g)     “Expert Committee for this purpose to examine the possibility and prepare a draft legislation where the need for multiple prior permissions can be replaced with a pre-existing regulatory mechanism”

Conclusion

   The 2015-16 budget lays out a substantial agenda of policy and institutional reform, as well as administrative and procedural improvements (not detailed above) that will help in accelerating economic growth to 8.5% and in sustaining it at that level for years to come. Some of the complementary reforms needed in land and labor laws, rules and procedures will of course be necessary to raise the employment elasticity of economic growth.
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Aversion of this article also appears in ET Blogs at http://blogs.economictimes.indiatimes.com/PolicyAnalysis/economic-reforms-in-budget-2015-16/

PM Modi’s Development Objectives & Reform Possibilities: Big Bang or Incremental?

Introduction

     One year ago (13/9/2013), I wrote that, “India needs an alternative narrative of economic growth and welfare, that politically challenges the monopoly of the left intellectuals.[i]  I also indicated that BJP leader Modi may be the ‘non-intellectual leader who overthrows this monopoly and creates a new "governance and growth," "right of center" national narrative to compete with the "socialist ideology"? I went on to conclude that, “Shri Modi has a better than even chance of becoming the next Prime Minister of India and of changing the political narrative of National welfare, governance and growth.” Prime Minister Modi’s actions and his government’s performance to date strengthens my belief that he is indeed that leader.

      Several eminent economists and analysts have expressed their disappointment that Prime Minister Modi has not used his election mandate and his majority in the Lok Sabha to introduce “major” reform. I am not one of them because it has been clear to me for more than a year that, it is not his style. He is laser focused on the objectives and goals he has outlined, first in the BJP manifesto, then in the President’s address to the first session of the new Parliament and in subsequent speeches.  And he will make whatever policy & institutional changes that he is convinced are necessary to achieve them, no more and no less.

Likely Approach to Reforms

Given PM Modi’s personal experience and achievement in Gujrat, his first inclination is to improve governance, speed up decision making, make administration more effective, improve the functioning of Departmental Public Enterprises, Public sector Banks and Public sector units and he has started doing all this. But a second, perhaps equally important element of PM Modi’s approach is the understanding that  it is business that will create productive, self-sustaining jobs across the entire spectrum of skills( from unskilled to semi-skilled to highly skilled). Hence to be “pro-poor” is to be “pro-growth” (of economy and employment) and to be “pro-business” is consistent with being “pro-poor.”  Thus it is essential to cut through the jungle of laws, rules, regulations, procedures and controls, to make it easy to set up and run new (job creating) businesses. All business is welcome, domestic or foreign, if it “First Develops India(FDI)” and helps us to close the large economic and technological gap with China and the rest of the World.

  Are “big bang” reforms of the kind whose lack has been bemoaned even by political opponents, needed to achieve PM Modi’s objective of providing job opportunities for every youngster, making India a manufacturing hub and closing the economic & technological gap with the World?  That is the question that I believe the PM will seek an answer to over the next six months.  In my judgment, PM Modi will undertake those reforms that are essential for achieving these results, no more and no less. Thus the initial focus is likely to remain on governance and other incremental reforms that have been outlined in the PMs speeches. If and when the limitations of these improvements is apparent and the PM is convinced that major policy reforms are needed to achieve the objectives he has outlined, only then is he likely to undertake such policy reforms.  The opposite of the same coin is that he is unlikely to undertake (in his first term) any policy or institutional reforms that are either peripheral to his task or whose likely contribution to these objectives is uncertain.

Phasing and Timing

  What are these reforms and how should they be introduced?  My experience of Indian economic reforms from 1987 to 2009, shows that the cost-benefit calculus for any reform must account for the risk of a substantive political counter-reaction as part of the cost of reform. Operationally this means that reform objectives must be kept clearly in mind at all times, but the timing and phasing of their introduction must depend on this modified benefit-cost calculus. The pace of introduction must therefore be “with all deliberate speed” without either being politically foolhardy or being overwhelmed by so called “political compulsions”. Fortunately, PM Modi has demonstrated that he can communicate directly with the public to reduce the political risk and thus increase the benefit-cost ratio from reforms.

Policy Reform Menu

 In my view the following reforms, can restore and sustain growth at 8% for several decades:[ii]

  1)      Macro Pivot:[iii] Scale back government consumption expenditures including subsidies and transfers, to bring Revenue deficit to zero in three years and Fiscal deficits to zero in five years. This will reduce government debt, the Current account deficit and foreign indebtedness and raise the national saving rate, allowing RBI to ease monetary policy and stimulate investment and consumer durable demand without fear of increasing Non Performing Assets or inflation. A UID linked mobile payment system provides the most effective means for delivering cash to all those who need & deserve public welfare support. Competitive auction of all natural resources will reduce corruption and raise more revenues. It is hoped that the Expenditure Reforms Commission will spell out a road map for improving the revenue & fiscal deficits.

  2)      Public sector: Close loss making units and reduce shareholding in profit making ones. Sell those units in industries that are inherently competitive (e.g. steel, airlines, power/ railway equipment, hotels, machinery; banks, insurance).[iv] This will stimulate a surge in manufacturing productivity (as in 1990s).  Use the proceeds of Public sector bank (PSB) share sale to recapitalize them and thus lift constraint on bank lending.[v]  Use PSU share sales to expand the fund for Govt. investment in Public goods infrastructure like highways, seaways, higher speed rail lines, MRTS & sewage collection & disposal networks.

  3)      Environment Protection has become a big bottleneck to investment because of its sweeping authority and expansive mandate.  A professional, technocratic, ‘environment protection agency (EPA)’ should be set up to deal with all types of environmental pollution (water, air, land; chemical, nuclear). The EPA should set standards for different forms of pollution and have the authority to impose penalties for violation of norms.  The environment ministry should have no discretion on application of these norms and standards.  The Supreme Court’s Green Bench, the only court of appeal, must be strengthened to ensure expeditious disposal.  An organization similar to the EPA, should be considered for dealing with ecological issues (forest, wetlands, coast, river basins, mountains).  Ecological issues must be defined and circumscribed much more carefully to eliminate endless governmental reviews and scope for corruption.

  4)       Land Acquisition Relief and Rehabilitation Act. The extremely laudable objective of fairness in compulsory acquisition of land has been converted into an expansive ecological and social agenda. Purely private voluntary land transactions must be removed completely from the ambit of this law and the enormous bureaucratization of rules and procedures rolled back. In addition the process & procedures for changing land use must be made transparent. The concerned minister has already initiated discussion with States, who are now becoming aware of the threats to growth that the law poses. This discussion needs to be carried through to changes in the Act.

5)      Institutional Reform: Fundamental political/electoral, police, judicial, legal and bureaucratic reform to address the issue of pervasive, systemic corruption and restore good governance on a sustainable basis.[vi]  Public safety & security is the right of all citizens as is “equality before law.” In the long term, the “rule of law” is critical to sustaining growth in a democratic open society. With good governance, we can even dream of welfare catch up with China! The e-governance and digital India initiatives can help in reducing corruption as will competitive auction of all natural resources. The law minister has already announced that many outdated laws will be repealed and more will be considered from repeal, amalgamation & simplification. The PM has also announced his support for measures to reduce the presence of criminals in legislatures. Tentative announcements on judicial and police reform need to be pursued more vigorously.

  6)      Infrastructure:  Break up government monopoly in coal and infrastructure sectors and introduce competition.  Convert the Indian Railways, Ports and Airports into publicly owned Ltd companies and set up professional independent regulatory structure to oversee free entry & benchmark competition in these sectors.  Enforce open access in electricity distribution & transmission & separate farm feeders for irrigation. The Digital India mission will be facilitated, particularly in rural areas, by “open access” to telecom land lines and electricity wires. This will set of a cycle of self-sustaining infrastructure growth and productivity improvement. The Coal nationalization act must be amended to allow private entry into coal mining. Coal India should be re-divided into 4-5 companies that compete with each other & shareholding reduced to 49%(to start with).

  7)      Labor Laws, rules & procedures: A reform of labor laws can play an important role in the success of “Make in India” campaign and is critical for generation of better quality jobs for unskilled & semi-skilled youth.  Exit clauses (5-6) in labor law can be repealed, with existing employees in organized sector grand fathered. Allow private competition in Employee State insurance (ESI), Employee Provident Fund (EPF) and other monopoly social welfare schemes for employees.[vii] Reform “Contract labor Act” to make it easier for labor contracting firms to comply with labor laws and increase provision of contract labor to industry. The already initiated reform Apprenticeship Act, to encourage training, instead of hindering it, is a good step.

  8)      Agricultural Policy: [viii]  Halt procurement price led inflation and massive overstocking of wheat and rice, repeal Agricultural Produce Marketing Act and Essential Commodities Act. Remove all policy restrictions on FDI in food retail.  Replace the policy of Ad hoc agricultural import-export bans by import-export tariff bands that offer transparent protection within limits. Re-establish scientific approach to GM crop trials and introduction of GM crops. These & related reforms will reduce Indian food inflation to the much lower levels prevailing globally, and thus help control overall inflation. They will also incentivize farmers to raise productivity and farm profitability.

  9)      Education:[ix] Research has shown that the private non-profit (NPO) sector provides education of quality equal on average to that of the public sector, but at 1/3^rd the cost. By requiring the NPOs to double or triple the salaries of teachers, RTE Act will drive them out & do incalculable damage to the cause of education. These clauses need to be dropped. The “license-permit raj” control system in education, needs to be replaced by a modern system of performance/quality rating and transparent accounting/financial disclosure, that allows students-parents to judge for themselves the quality & cost of education in different schools & colleges.

Conclusion

 The above menu of policy reforms is not cast in stone. As the economy recovers, other policy changes may need to be added to the list and perhaps some removed. The history of economic growth shows, that sustaining fast growth is much more difficult than raising it from a slower level.[x] Many countries have raised growth to higher levels for short periods, few have sustained it for long enough period to move from Low income levels to high income (or even upper-middle income) levels. Success has usually come to those who have a non-ideological, pragmatic approach to economic development, growth and welfare, and have pursued these objectives with determination.[xi]  Successful countries are those who respond to shocks and challenges as they arise instead of ignoring them or allowing them to fester.

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[i] http://dravirmani.blogspot.in/2013/09/modi-anti-intellectual-icon.html

[ii] First presented in http://dravirmani.blogspot.in/2013/12/reforms-2014-19-for-employment-and.html  and Arvind Virmani, “National Reform Agenda For Growth and Welfare,: Policy Paper No WsPp1/2014, January 2014. https://sites.google.com/site/drarvindvirmani/policy-papers .

[iii] http://dravirmani.blogspot.in/2013/02/macro-pivot-rebalancing-of-indian.html.

[iv] For rationale, see https://sites.google.com/site/chintan1997reg/institutional-reform/governance-corruption

[v] A recent  calculation shows that the market value of the 23 largest PSBs (excluding SBI) is less than the market value of one private bank. Thus a large portion of the national debt could be eliminated by selling these 23 PSBs. All those who are declared eligible for bank licenses by the RBI could be authorized to bid for controlling shares in a competitive auction of the smaller, less profitable PSBs (with 51% minimum govt. holding deleted). Govt. would also sell 25% of its shares in the other 23 PSBs (reducing it from 51% to 26%) so as to capitalize them.

[vi] See institutional reforms at, https://sites.google.com/site/chintan1997reg/institutional-reform

[vii] The New Pension Scheme (NPS) for government employees already allows private management of these funds.

[viii] See Agriculture reform at https://sites.google.com/site/chintan1997reg/economic-policy-and-regulation/agriculture. 

[ix]  “Sustaining Employment and Equitable Growth:  Policies For Structural Transformation Of The Indian Economy,” Working Paper No. 3/2006-PC, Planning Commission, March 2006. http://planningcommission.nic.in/reports/wrkpapers/rpwpf.htm.

[x] “Accelerating And Sustaining Growth:  Economic and Political Lessons,”  IMF Working Paper No. WP/12/185, July 2012. [ http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/cat/wp1_sp.aspx?s_year=2012&e_year=2012&brtype=default ].

[xi] https://sites.google.com/site/chintan1997reg/economic-policy-and-regulation/skills-education or Arvind Virmani, “Sustaining Fast Growth In India: Economic and Political Economy Lessons,” Working Paper No. WsWp 3/2012, June 2012 [ https://sites.google.com/site/drarvindvirmani/ ].