Performance of Manufacturing Industries in India During Reform Period

During the last two decades, the macro-economic policy environment in India has undergone a substantial change. These policy changes especially those relating to the liberalization of trade and industry and new initiatives to integrate the Indian economy with the global economy have certainly influenced on the competitive performance of Indian industries. In this direction it is essential to measure the impact of above stated policy changes on Indian industries by classifying into capital and labour intensive industries. Because, the effect of economic reforms on capital and labour intensive industries are not similar due to heterogeneous characteristics of these industries. Hence the author make a modest attempt to compare the performance of capital and labour intensive industries in terms of three key indicators of industrial performance, namely, productivity, export and employment generation. The first two factors are important for an industry to compete in international market and last indicator is so essential in the context of labour abundance and acute unemployment problem in India.