ONLINE ESSAY WRITING COMPETITION

TOPIC: Reducing Import Dependency – Atmanirbharta Ki Aur

As the country achieved Independence on August 15, 1947, our political masters found out that India had been
bled to the point of extinction. The country had successfully overthrown slavery at the huge cost of life,
partition, and uprooting millions from their home and hearth and now was heading towards economic slavery.
Food production, production of essential items, fertilizers, steel, and even cotton textiles were below the
required level. Weapons to arm the army, navy, and air force were also to be procured from outside and the
economic slavery was complete. The democratic right to existence was becoming a myth. Self-sufficiency had
become distant.

It was at this time that self-reliance was seriously considered, to get out of the clutches of foreign countries
and to save precious foreign exchange, serious planning was required. The Socialist bloc of countries had set
the ball rolling with the idea of public sector enterprise. This was the idea mooted in our country too to
provide self-reliance and employment, both. The main idea was the democratic and socialistic norm of
economic equality. A dream which remains unfulfilled till date with the yawning gap between the rich and the
poor widening further. Yes, initially it did serve the purpose of reducing our country’s dependence on foreign
exchange and loans, but later we thoroughly bungled in managing our units, due to rampant corruption,
bureaucratic incompetence, and political looting is another matter.

Even after decades of India’s Independence, self-reliance could not be adopted in the sense of ability to pay for
its imports. The requirement of food grains was necessary as the internal production was short. Technology
and development needs had to be supplemented by procurement in foreign exchange. The problem was that
there was no export surplus to pay for these imports and this need was supplemented by aid from the World
Bank and developed countries. Foreign aid was thus used to pay for the excess of imports necessitated by
economic development.

This vicious circle of aids however dulled our capacities of domestic effort. In one case we were being
blackmailed and arm-twisted by the USA who was supplying food grains under P.L.480 and this shook us in
1965 when the approval started being made on a month-to-month basis. Besides, all foreign aids, except that
received from international agencies, was in the form of tied aid. According to Dr. V.K.R.V. Rao, the cost of
these tied foreign aids was 10 to 12 percent higher than world market prices for the same goods.

Dr. Manmohan Singh, former Finance Minister says: “Developing countries can no longer rely on increasing
flows of concessional assistance and Self-Reliance must be defined in terms of country’s ability to sustain a
reasonable rate and pattern of economic growth without excessive dependence on external resources
supplied on concessional terms.”

Self-reliance is our country has been mainly due to the private sector and today, the government has woken
up to the futility of public enterprises. Efforts of privatization are in full swing but what needs to be
investigated is that even the profit-making units are being bartered away for a fraction of what they are worth.
Again, self-interest and political mileage have become the main factors. They were held back when several
offers were amounting to considerable sums and profits and are being given away at fractions of earlier offers
now.

Our country has been blessed with a bounty of natural resources which is being exploited for self-reliance.
Luckily, the private sector has been successful in making the country self-reliant in agricultural products,
textiles, steel, computer software, fertilizers, and heavy industries. We have reached the extent of having
surplus production in several sectors and can earn necessary foreign exchange.

Import Dependency Ratio is a term, which is seen from the economics point of view, which refers to the extent
of dependency on importation concerning domestic consumption. Items like Mineral fuels including oil;
electrical machinery, equipment; Gems and precious metals; Machinery including computers; Organic
chemicals; Animal/vegetable fats, waxes, etc; etc are a few of the many items which India imports globally at a
very high scale. In recent times during the pandemic there was a steep increase in demand for medical devices
like ventilators and salts of many essential medicines, so to curb such situation in advance for another
pandemic there should be technology transfer for more advanced and critical medical devices and our country
have ample capacity to domestically make the product. The manufacture of some of the key products that
India imports such as semiconductors, displays, and other very capital-intensive electrical equipment may not
be possible soon as manufacturing these require large, stable sources of clean water and electricity. They also
need a high degree of policy certainty as these require a high upfront investment.

The country is also self-reliant in most of the modern technologies, and we are having the best engineers,
doctors, and scientists in the world. Unfortunately, there has been considerable brain drain due to the wrong
policies of the political system. The brilliant brains are shifting to greener pastures in foreign countries the
moment they pass out from our IITs, IIMs and Medical Colleges. Economic reforms in several sectors have
been continually planned, the success of which depends on compatibility and proper implementation. 

The progress and objectives of our self-reliance policy or shall I say Atmanirbharta has shown the right path
and saved our economy which if not at the level which should have been attained has at least saved the day
and made the other more developed countries sit up and take notice of our country.