Former Deputy Chairman of the erstwhile Planning Commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia, who played a key role when India set out on major economic reform process in the early 1990s, has cautioned against deviating from the path and resorting to protectionist measures.
“We have a long way to go... certainly [should] not say because of what happened [elsewhere] it is good for us to close down. It would be a horrendous mistake. We should remain open and resist the temptation to raise protective duties,” Mr. Ahluwalia said delivering the inaugural Abhay Tripathi Memorial Lecture, on ‘Economic reforms: Yesterday, Today and India@75’, at the Dr.MCR HRD Institute of Telangana here.
Pointing to significance of accelerating the process as “what we achieved in 30 years should have been achieved in 15 years,” the well-known economist said there is more interest in reforms now than before as the world begins to look beyond China for manufacturing and sourcing products. The COVID-19 pandemic had only accentuated the process of diversification in the supply chain that until now was heavily dominated by China.
