No Title
Badal Mukherjee
SHORTAGES AND HIGH PRICES: THE WAY OUT by L.K. Jha Indian Book Company, 1977, 236 pp., 27.00
Nov-Dec 1977, volume 2, No 6

I have rarely been so impressed by a piece of writing on hard, practical, eco­nomic problems written in the language (as Mr. Jha puts it) of laymen, as by this little book, especially because there are some major items over which I disagree with the author. Mr. Jha has been in the centre of things for well over two de­cades now. Currently the Governor of Jammu & Kashmir State and Chairman of the Committee on Indirect Taxes, he has been Secretary, Ministry of Fin­ance (1960-64), Secretary to the Prime Minister (1964-67), Governor of the. Reserve Bank of India (1967-70) and Ambassador to the U.S.A. (1970-73). Professional economists would probably characterize him as a career diplomat. What he has achieved in this book should be a challenge to many a professional economist.

There are eleven chapters in the book of which the first ten take up the pro­blems of shortage and high prices while the last one, presumably written towards the end of 1976 discusses the problems of plenty, rising foreign exchange reserves and food stocks. In the first ten chapters Mr. Jha covers the broad strategy of plan­ning and specific problems of industrial and agricultural price policy and control, public sector enterprises, housing, mar­keting and sectoral and general inflation.

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