Looking back at Indian economy in 2006, Gurcharan Das writes:

2006, the year gone by, was one of the best in India's economic history. We had two successive quarters of 9 per cent growth, following three unprecedented years of 8, and this came on top of a remarkable 6 per cent average growth in the previous 22 years. (Recall that the West's industrial revolution took place at a rate of 3 per cent GDP growth!) As a result, 1 per cent of the country's poor have crossed the poverty line each year since 1980, and this adds up to almost 200 million people. It is less than China's 300 million, but it is significant. Meanwhile, population growth has also begun to slow.

Hence, growth has brought large per capita income gains—from $1,178 in 1980 to $3,051 in 2005 (in ppp).

Although our driving engine is the private economy, you cannot do without the state. Not surprisingly, some of our best-performing sectors have had the best regulators, who have worked hard to create genuine competition in the market—for example, telecom (TRAI), capital markets (SEBI), insurance, and highways.

Every Indian's fondest wish today is for a tough regulator in the power sector, who would implement the Electricity Act, create vigorous competition and have the courage to take on politicians in the states, as Seshan did at the Election Commission or as Justice Sodhi took on the telecom bureaucrats at TRAI. Vajpayee's greatest contribution was to create the conditions for our telecom revolution that has visibly transformed millions of lives. Indians of all persuasions wish fervently that Manmohan Singh's claim to fame would be to create a similar revolution in electric power. Nothing quite diminishes us as a nation as our pathetic power situation.

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