India @75 should shun protectionism and get more competitive

The task ahead is to discard the protectionist trade and tariff policies that have failed us and adopt the liberal policies that have helped us

Today, we celebrate the completion of 75 years since attaining Independence from colonial rule. It is natural to reflect on the journey and look ahead.

Our trade policy, during this period, has gone through broadly three different phases – a restrictive import and export policy till 1991, a progressively liberal policy since then and back to somewhat protectionist policy in the last few years that is still being played out.

In the initial phase, the main aims of the trade policy were to allow only essential imports required for production and to protect the domestic producers from competition by maintaining high import