India's Economic Policy Since independence the Indian government has attempted to pursue a mixed economic policy with features of both a free market and socialist planning. Major industries such as railroads, automobile manufacturing, and banking are government run. At the same time, many consumer-goods industries and agriculture are in private hands. The center of the planned economy has been a series of five-year plans fostering state takeover of the former British colonial economic structure. Under India's first prime minister, Jawaharlal NEHRU, the plans stressed heavy industry, often at the expense of agriculture. Today India ranks amon