Q.Explain the salient features of the Industrial Policy Resolution, 1948.

The 1948 Resolution was independent India's first industrial policy statement and laid the foundation for a mixed economy.

The Industrial Policy Resolution of 1948 was the first industrial policy statement of independent India and established the principle of a mixed economy in which both the public and private sectors would coexist. It divided industries into four broad categories. The first category consisted of industries that would be an exclusive state monopoly, such as arms and ammunition, atomic energy and railway transport, considered too strategically sensitive to be left to private enterprise. The second category covered basic and strategic industries — including coal, iron and steel, aircraft manufacture and shipbuilding — in which the state would take the lead in setting up new units, while existing private units in these industries were permitted to continue operating for a defined period. The third category consisted of industries of basic importance where the state would progressively and increasingly regulate private enterprise rather than take them over directly. The fourth and residual category covered all remaining industries, which were left open to private enterprise, whether individual or cooperative, without special state regulation. By laying down this fourfold classification, the 1948 Resolution established, for the first time, the coexistence of public and private ownership that would chara …

Students frequently confuse the four categories of 1948 with the three Schedules of 1956; these are two distinct, sequential poli …