After India’s independence in
1947, economic conditions across the country were devastating. The brutal
effect of the British Imperialism on the economy was fairly evident by the
frequent famines and the high fatality rates. Partition of India not only
divided it on the basis of land but also in two economic zones. Therefore, the
government underwent a hard time coping with the economy deficits and poverty
in India. The period between 1947 and 1991 saw the pre-liberalization phase.
During this period the public or the government sector failed to meet the
demand of the nation to overcome its problems with reference to the poverty and
bitter financial status. Jawaharlal Nehru, then Prime Minister of India, devised
a method of Mixed Economy (capitalism combined with government intervention which
consequently led to initially high growth rates but which by the end of fourth
decade converted to low growth rates and a license obsessed restrictive state).
License Raj proved to be unfruitful because the foreign goods were unable to
reach the market and the private companies were restricted to produce and to
make foreign trading. But the beginning of 1991 saw the post liberalization under
P.V.Narsimharao. Liberalization eased the restrictions over the small scale
industries, the taxes and other price controls promoting policies like foreign
direct investment. This led to the expansion of private sector more than the
public sectors with the prime motive to earn profit. But this policy of liberalization
helped to improve the economic statistics of the nation. The public and private
sector are often considered to be contradictory and sometimes complementary. Since
both the sectors helped in increasing the country’s capital therefore there was
a need for these two wings to join hands and work together which is now known
as public private partnership. Under this relationship, public sector gives
away certain cooperation to the private sector in terms of land and
infrastructure and the private sector gives high capital profit by producing superstructure.
Similar partnerships like BOLT (Built Operate Lease and Transfer) and BOOT
(Built Own Operate and Transfer) serve the same purpose. BOLT and BOOT are long
term schemes under which private party is given a certain area of land on which
it can establish private firms and produce goods, capital and profit and after
a certain period of time as decided by the Government, the private sector has
to transfer the control of the industry to the Governments hands. Public sector alone is a victim of Red Tapism
that involves excessive bureaucracy and low efficiency in decision making while
private sector is fast at decision making and is highly efficient. Gradually
with increasing privatization, globalization also came to picture. Up till then
the GDP of the country increased from 16% to 47% by the end of 2008-10. Globalization
included the FDI which made India a preferred centre for the same. Public
sectore kept major functional areas such as Health, Railways, Defense, Infrastructure,
Land allotment etc under its control and the private sector gained access to
the superstructure development, Industrialization, Globalisation in terms of
export and import. But in the recent years the areas under Public sector have
open handedly welcomed the private intervention, for example, infrastructure
under National Highways Authority of India and Midday Meal scheme. In the field
of Health concerns, various NGO’S such as C.R.Y., Transparency International, Common
Cause, Naz etc have exemplary contributions. Corporate Social Responsibility is
the policy under which the private firms are obliged to pay back the cost of
profit in the form of welfare and developments. This type of relationship has
not only bought the two sectors closer but also a shared the responsibility to
take the nation to appreciably higher levels of economy and development so that
India can rise as a world power in terms of Financial Stability by the end of
2025. Therefore the Public and Private partnership is proving to be a boon for
the entire nation and world facilitating export and import, earning foreign currency,
providing larger employment and developing science and technology and
consequently taking the country to the higher summits of success.
