A mixed economic system is usually defined by the simultaneous prevalence
of private sector industries which are motivated by profitability and
productivity considerations, and a strong public sector which takes care of
infrastructure, social justice, and welfare of the people. During the last four decades
of planned development in India the professed role of the public sector has
reached an extreme situation where the government has become a guarantor of
employment security.1
The last three five-year plans overstated the role of development
plans mainly in creating employment without any practical policy for productivity
growth [15] [16] [17]. The Sixth Five Year Plan (1980–85) has in fact gone
one step further, “In the context of growing labor force (34 million over 5 years)
and the mixed economy, the policy measures have necessarily to cover not only the
direct employment generation in the public sector but also the entire gamut of economic
activity in the public, cooperative and private sectors” [16, p. 207].2