Sikkim- 1949,with a Difference

term lending institutions (IDBI, ICICI and IFC) taken together were nominally lower in 1972 than in 1971. Such other indicators as capital raised (not counting a couple of very large debenture issues) and capital goods licences issued showed hardly any improvement. And despite a large amount of import licences issued during 1971-72 (April- March). (here was a significant fall in the value of actual imports in the first eight months of 1972-73. In exports, the reported improvement is restricted to the traditional commodities like cotton and jute textiles, oil cakes, cashew and hides and skins. Among non-traditional commodities, only marine pro- duels .showed a phenomena! rise of nearly St) per cent in April-August 1972. Engineering exports rose by 4 per cent during the period, while exports of iron ore actually declined. Hail- way wagon loadings are another index of the level of industrial activity. These rose by hardly 1.5 per cent from 34.20 lakhs in April-August 1971 to 34.73 lakhs in April-August 1972. Earlier, in 1968-69) and 1909-70 when the index of industrial output had risen by ever 6' per cent in each year, wagon loadings had risen by about 3.5 per cent per year from 82.71 lakhs in 1907-68 to 85.57 lakhs in 1968-09 and further to 88.29 lakhs in 1909-70. The behaviour of some of these indicators may be capable of being explained by certain special circumstance. But all of them put together give rise to misgivings about the reliability of the estimate of growth of industrial output of over 7 per cent