Mahalanobis Committee

A series of reforms was initiated in the form of studies by some committees and commissions in the 1960s to tackle the problem of License Raj. First of them was Mahalanobis Committee.

This committee is known as “Distribution of Income and Levels of Living” and it was set up in 1960 to find an answer to the question that who was benefitted by the first and second five year plans, as there was no substantial increase in the per capita income of the people.

There were other questions on the “monopolistic tendencies”. The committee submitted its report in 1964 and it observed that “Planned Economy encouraged the process of concentration by facilitating and aiding the growth of Big Business. Further, it also observed that the big Government institutions such as IFC (Industrial Finance Corporation), LIC, National Industrial Development Corporation etc. have aided to the Monopolistic growth”. The Mahalanobis committee also recommended that sooner the Government would set up necessary machinery for collection, examination and analysis of relevant data, easier would be for the government to combine the industrial development with social development.