FROM 50 YEARS AGO Second Plan, this calls for an increase of down. Even if the fall in money incomes and Rs 630 crores during the last year of the in prices exactly offset one another, it would First Plan. The press-note on national income be misleading to imagine that the fall in prices issued by the Cabinet Secretariat shows also had, therefore, no effect on the economy. The that per capita income remained unchanged estimate of national incomes, being a statebetween 1953-54 and 1954-55 at Rs 269, the ment of the result of the interaction of various
Vol VIII No 21, May 26, 1955 increase in total income being evidently forces, cannot indicate causal relationships offset by the increase in population over the that bring about changes in economic activity period... and hence in the aggregate figure.
National Income
There has been a sharp fall in national The absence of any large rise in nationalin 1954-55 income at current prices and a still steeper income at 1948-49 prices between 1953-54 (Weekly Notes) fall in the per capita income at current prices and 1954-55 was, it is further stated, “almost
and the per capita net output in 1954-55 was entirely due to no rise in agricultural produc
India’s national income at 1948-49 prices even lower than that in the base year of the tion between the two years”. As industrialincreased by only Rs 130 crores to Rs 10,170 First Plan, 1950-51. This is, of course, explained production was expanding rapidly over thecrores during the year 1954-55 as compared by the fall in prices, particularly of foodgrains, period covered, it follows that the increase inwith increases of Rs 580 crores and Rs 360 during the year. The press-note, however, industrial production during the year was justcrores during the previous two years. With naively comments that the fall in money enough to compensate for the growth ofthe estimated national income for 1955-56 incomes has not adversely affected the general population, keeping the per capita incomeput at Rs 10,800 crores according to the population because prices have also gone unchanged.
Economic and Political Weekly May 27, 2006
