Q.What similar developmental strategies have India and Pakistan followed for their respective developmental paths ?

India and Pakistan both began with centralised planning, a mixed economy, import substitution, and public-sector-led industrialisation, before later shifting toward liberalisation.

India and Pakistan, having emerged from the same colonial economy in 1947, pursued broadly similar developmental strategies for several decades:

1. Centralised planning through Five Year Plans: both countries adopted the Soviet-inspired model of formulating multi-year development plans to guide resource allocation (India from 1951; Pakistan also used five-year plans).
2. Mixed economy with a dominant public sector: both gave the state a leading role in heavy industry, infrastructure, and key sectors, while allowing a private sector to operate alongside it.
3. Import substitution industrialisation: both protected domestic industries from foreign competition through high tariffs and quantitative restrictions, aiming to build self-reliant domestic industry rather than relying on imports.
4. Reliance on agriculture and emphasis on land reforms (with mixed success) to raise agricultural productivity, since both economies began as predominantly agrarian. …