CAMBRIDGE SOUTH ASIAN STUDIES PUBLIC EXPENDITURE AND INDIAN DEVELOPMENT POLICY 1960-1970 CAMBRIDGE SOUTH ASIAN STUDIES These monographs are published by the Syndics of Cambridge University Press in association with the Cambridge University Centre for South Asian Studies. The following books have been published in this series: 1 S. Gopal: British Policy in India, 1858—1905 2 J. A. B. Palmer: The Mutiny Outbreak at Meerut in 1857 3 A. Das Gupta: Malabar in Asian Trade, 1740-1800 4 G. Obeyesekere: Land Tenure in Village Ceylon 5 H. L. Erdman: The Swatantra Party and Indian Conservatism 6 S. N. Mukherjee: Sir William Jones: A Study in Eighteenth-Century British Attitudes to India 7 Abdul Majed Khan: The Transition in Bengal, 1756—1775: A Study of Sayid Muhammad Reza Khan 8 Radhe Shyam Rungta: The Rise of Business Corporations in India, 1851— 1900 9 Pamela Nightingale: Trade and Empire in Western India, 1784—1806 I o Amiya Kumar Bagchi: Private Investment in India, 1900 -1939 I1 Judith M. Brown: Gandhi's Rise to Power: Indian Politics, 1915 —1922 12 Mary C. Carras: The Dynamics of Indian Political Factions 13 P. Hardy: The Muslims of British India 14 Gordon Johnson: Provincial Politics and Indian Nationalism 15 Marguerite S. Robinson: Political Structure in a Changing Sinhalese Village 16 Francis Robinson: Separatism among Indian Muslims: The Politics of the United Provinces' Muslims, i860-1923 17 Christopher John Baker: The Politics of South India, 1920—1936 18 David Washbrook: The Emergence of Provincial Politics: The Madras Presi- dency, 1870—1920 19 Deepak Nayyar: India's Exports and Export Policies in the 1960s 20 Mark Holmstrdm: South Indian Factory Workers: Their Life and Their World 21 S. Ambirajan: Classical Political Economy and British Policy in India 22 M. M. Islam: Bengal Agriculture 1920—1946: A Quantitative Study 23 Eric Stokes: The Peasant and the Raj: Studies in Agrarian Society and Peasant Rebellion in Colonial India 24 Michael Roberts: Caste Conflict and Elite Formation: The Rise of a Karava Elite in Sri Lanka, 1500-1931 25 John Toye: Public Expenditure and Indian Development Policy i960—1970 PUBLIC EXPENDITURE AND INDIAN DEVELOPMENT POLICY 1960-1970 JOHN TOYE Fellow of Wolfson College and an Assistant Director of Development Studies University of Cambridge CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS CAMBRIDGE LONDON NEW YORK NEW ROCHELLE MELBOURNE SYDNEY CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, Sao Paulo Cambridge University Press The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 8RU, UK Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521230810 © Cambridge University Press 1981 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 1981 This digitally printed version 2008 A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library ISBN 978-0-521-23081-0 hardback ISBN 978-0-521-05002-9 paperback CONTENTS List of Tables vii Preface xi List of Abbreviations xiii Introduction xv PART ONE: GENERAL 1 Public expenditure and state accumulation in theory 3 Comments on economic approaches to public spending 3 Development and state accumulation 9 The rationale of state accumulation 13 2 Indian nationalism and the state accumulation policy 2 I Mimetic nationalism 2 I Pre -history of Indian state accumulation policy 2 7 Background to post-independence development policy 3 8 3 The interpretation of Indian public expenditure statistics 49 Primary documents and secondary reclassifications 49 Schemes ofreclassification: a critique 5 3 Indian versions of the national accounts reclassification 7 3 PART TWO: EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE 4 The fiscal performance of the public sector 85 Growth of public authorities' expenditure 8 7 Changing composition of public expenditure 91 Decline of public sector capital formation and saving 100 vi Contents Stagnation of public enterprise surpluses 113 5 Public expenditure and the industrial recession 119 Post-1965 recession and capital goods 119 Public expenditure and the demand for capital goods 124 6 The degree of public expenditure centralization 137 Changes in public expenditure centralization 137 Possible explanations considered 148 7 The growth of state governments' spending 158 Inter-state differences in public expenditure growth 158 Factors related to public spending growth in the states 165 8 Public investment, public saving and the state governments 176 Public investment centralization 176 Public saving centralization 180 Inter-state differences in the growth of public capital formation 194 Statewise comparison of public capital formation and public saving 209 PART THREE: CONCLUSIONS 9 The Indian state accumulation policy in retros- pect 215 Mimetic nationalism and state accumulation 215 State accumulation and public expenditure 223 Public expenditure control and the states 230 1 o Summary of conclusions 234 APPENDICES A Checklist of state-produced economic reclassifi- cations 245 B The calculation of expenditure centralization ratios from data on a national accounts basis 249 C Problems arising in the preparation of statewise constant price expenditure series 253 List of works cited 257 Index 269 LIST OF TABLES 2.1 Growth of net national product at 1960/61 prices, 1950/51 to 1973/74- 4° 2.2 Indicators of price level changes, 1950/51 to 1973/74- 4i 2.3 'Aid' inflows and foreign exchange reserves, 195O/5 1 to i97°/7 1 - 42 4.1 Public expenditure growth in relation to the growth of output, prices and population, 1960/61 to 1968/69. 86 4.2 The share of the government sector in the economy: 3 measures, 1960/62 to 1968/70. 88 4.3 Changes in real public expenditure per head, 1960/61 to 1968/69. 89 4.4 Budgetary transactions of central and state governments expressed as percentages of total outlay, 1960/61 to 1969/70. 92 4.5 Public authorities' expenditure by economic category expressed as percentages of the total, 1960/61 to 1969/70. 98 4.6 Public authorities' gross fixed capital formation in relation to G.N.P. and total gross fixed capital formation, 1960/61 to 1969/70. 102 4.7 Public sector gross fixed capital formation in relation to G.N.P. and total gross fixed capital formation, 1960/61 to 1969/70. 10 3 4.8 Public authorities' saving in relation to G.N.P., total saving, current receipts and own invest- ment, 1960/61 to 1969/70. 105 vii viii List of tables 4.9 Public enterprises' net trading profits and dividends contributed to the exchequer, 1962/63 to 1969/70. 106 4.10 Percentage of public sector capital formation financed by public sector saving, 1960/61 to 1969/70. 107 4.11 Government current receipts in relation to national income, 1960/61 to 1968/69. 109 4.12 The structure of government current receipts, 1960/61 to 1968/69. 110 5.1 Index numbers of agricultural output, 1960/61 to 1969/70. 120 5.2 Index numbers of industrial production, 1961 to 1970. 121 5.3 Growth rates of industrial production, i960 to 1970. 122 5.4 Index numbers of industrial output by linkage categories, 1962-70. 123 5.5 Changes in public sector product, 1961/62 to 1968/69. 126 5.6 Capital finance account of public authorities at current prices, 1960/61 to 1968/69. 131 5.7 Index numbers of wholesale prices in India (new series), 1961/62 to 1970. 132 6.1 Percentage of government spending by states (Reddy), 1938-68. 141 6.2 All states' expenditure as a percentage of total public authorities'expenditure, 1960-70. 142 6.3 Central and state government expenditure by programmes, 1960/61 to 1969/70. 144 6.4 Centre and states' expenditure by economic category, 1960/61 to 1969/70. 149 7.1 Three all-India price indices, 1960/61, 1961/62 and 1969/70. 160 List of tables ix 7.2 Annual compound growth rates of government expenditure at 1960/61 prices by states, 1960- 70. 161 7.3 Statewise growth rates of population and real government expenditure per head, 1960-70. 163 7.4 Government spending per head by state at 1960/61 prices. 164 7.5 Growth of real government spending per head, and of urban population in the more urban states, 1960-70. 169 7.6 Growth of real government spending per head, and of average real income in the less urban states, 1960—70. 170 8.1 Public sector gross capital formation by spend- ing authority, 1960/61 to 1969/70. 178 8.2 Public authorities' saving (post-devolution con- cept) at current prices, 1960/61 to 1969/70. 184 8.3 Percentage contributions to public authorities saving (post-devolution concept), 1960/61 to 1969/70. 185 8.4 Net saving of public sector ('new breakdown ) at current prices, 1960/61 to 1969/70. 186 8.5 Percentage contributions to net public sector saving ('new breakdown'), 1960/61 to 1969/70. 187 8.6 Shares of gross capital formation financed by own saving (Variant A), 1960/61 to 1969/70. 190 8.7 Shares of gross capital formation financed by own saving (Variant B), 1960/61 to 1969/70. 191 8.8 Share of agriculture in state domestic product, by state, 1964/65. 197 8.9 Deflated growth rates of gross fixed capital formation by state, 1960/61 to 1969/70. 198 8.10 Statewise share of public capital formation in domestic product and total public expenditure, 1960/61. 201 x List of tables 8.11 Rank correlation coefficients for variables in Table 8.10. 202 8.12 Indicators of income growth and changes in G.F.C.F./S.D.P. and G.F.C.F./public expendit- ure ratios by state, 1960-70. 203 8.13 Rank correlation coefficients for variables in Table 8.12. 203 8.14 Indicators of government activity and the share of capital formation in government spending by state, 1960/61 and 1969/70. 206 8.15 Rank correlation coefficients for variables in Table 8.14. 207 8.16 Growth rates of deflated 'post-devolution' sav- ing by state governments, 1960/61 to 1969/70. 211 9.1 Price indices implicit in national income esti- mates, 1960/61 to 1969/70. 218 9.2 Employment in the public and private organ- ized sectors, 1961-71. 226 B.i States' spending 'gap' as a percentage of their total spending, 1960/61 to 1969/70. 251 C. 1 Comparison of price indices in four states, 1960/61 and 1969/70. 255 [...]... foreign non-agricultural and public sectors), for the sake of simplicity assume only two 19 Gadgil (1972), p 188 20 Sachs (1964), p p 37-51- Public expenditure and state accumulation 11 sectors, a private sector and a public sector comprising public enterprises and a unitary government If we assume away all borrowing and lending between these sectors and all capital transfers on public account (i.e 'aid'),... leads to a plethora of arbitrary and irrecon14 E.g Martin and Lewis (1956) 15 E.g Fabricant( 1952) 16 Bird (1969 )and (1970), pp 7 6and 126; Morss (1966), pp 97-102 Public expenditure and state accumulation 9 cilable 'scientific results'.17 For economists of public expenditure, the empiricism of the computer has been a most thoroughly explored blind alley II DEVELOPMENT AND STATE ACCUMULATION Clearly,... development, the planning and control of public expenditure (both current and capital) is one of the three fiscal supports for the policy of state accumulation, the other two being revenue-raising and the profitable management of public enterprises It could be argued also to be the most critical support for that policy For while, if public expenditure were satisfactorily planned and controlled, a poor... an acorn becoming an oak-tree) Thirdly, there is an active sense of development Obviously, our concern with Indian development is not a concern to observe what happens to Indian society and the economy, nor even to observe Indian society and the economy evolving to some pre-ordained natural end It is a concern to see Indian society and the economy actively developed, in the same sense as a business,... drastically upwards in times of war or social upheaval Consequently, graphs of public spending show a ratchet, or 'upward displacement' effect A recent study of Indian public expenditure has taken over the Peacock and Wiseman approach lock, stock and barrel and tried to apply it to Indian data It is claimed therein that in the Indian data 'the displacement effect is found clearly'.5 This is a somewhat... first bracket on the right-hand side shows the components of total government sector's (or 'public authorities') revenue and the second bracket on the right-hand side shows the main components of public expenditure in the absence of inter-sector transfers, namely consumption of goods and services (C.) and subsidy payments (Z) By substitution, the capital formation of the public sector can be defined... technical kind, and the second and third aims are broader, historical ones The technical objective was to place the analysis of Indian public expenditure on a sounder and more informative statistical base than that on which it has hitherto rested For a number of reasons which are explained in some detail in Chapter 3 the national accounts classification of public expenditure is, when its advantages and disadvantages... accumulation policy Public expenditure control implies the existence of some effective method of adjusting the trajectory of public spending, in a changing environment, in the pursuit of a previously planned target Whatever this method is, it must embrace all types of public expenditure (and not merely that voted by the legislature) by all types of public authority It must involve a survey of all public. .. 0 - 5 ; and (1972), p 46 5 6 General Apart from long-run historical studies of public expenditure trends, recent economists have theorized about public expenditure from two perspectives, one derived from microeconomics, and the other from macroeconomics The microeconomic perspective derives from a revival of the concept of a 'public good', which had been developed outside the Anglo-Saxon public finance... the public sector at the all-India level is given in Chapter 4 Chapter 5 considers how far the public authorities were responsible for causing the industrial recession in the late 1960s by their own expenditure programming Changes in the degree of centralization of public expenditure are examined in Chapter 6 Chapter 7 presents a measure of the inter-state differences in public expenditure growth, and . 1500-1931 25 John Toye: Public Expenditure and Indian Development Policy i960—1970 PUBLIC EXPENDITURE AND INDIAN DEVELOPMENT POLICY 1960-1970 JOHN TOYE Fellow of Wolfson College and an Assistant. Contents Stagnation of public enterprise surpluses 113 5 Public expenditure and the industrial recession 119 Post-1965 recession and capital goods 119 Public expenditure and the demand for capital. CONCLUSIONS 9 The Indian state accumulation policy in retros- pect 215 Mimetic nationalism and state accumulation 215 State accumulation and public expenditure 223 Public expenditure control and the