Comments on the Draft Approach to the 12th Five Year Plan of India

Rajendra K. Bera, Sunish Raj, Hiten Balsari

Full paper published on Dec 2011 in Journal of Social Science Research- -http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1968313&


We believe that higher education and creation and protection of intellectual property [IP] are critical for economic growth and are keen to know where the country is headed.

China, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong, have all spent years building their education and R&D institutions and IP system in a planned manner. In India, the education system has been declining rapidly over the years and there is no robust IP system in place.

The critique also points to other areas to which the authors argue that Planning Commission has not given adequate focus. For instance, the need for job creation at the high end, such as positions for researchers, innovators and professors whose knowledge and skills now drive the global economy, and the need to retain and also attract back to the country high-caliber talent that has gone overseas.

Planning Commission has a “blind spot” toward the information technology sector. They contend that while this industry has put India on the global map by offering high salaries for low-tech jobs, it has “systematically siphoned off the top layer of the educated young population … thus depriving all other sectors of the economy in desperate need of talent.”