India

F

Manufacturing

The government’s push for industrialization beginning in the late 1950s gave India a diversified and substantial manufacturing sector. Industrial production steadily increased, reducing India’s reliance on imports, and by the 1980s India ranked among the “newly industrialized countries.” Important industrial products include processed food, textiles, iron and steel, chemicals, aluminum, and vehicles of all kinds from bicycles to trucks and railway engines. India also is a significant producer of electrical machinery, fertilizer, refined petroleum products, and copper. High-technology items such as computers are manufactured in collaboration with foreign companies. In the 1990s India’s computer software industry expanded enormously.

G

Energy

Energy is the keystone of India’s agricultural and industrial development. To meet its energy needs, India is heavily dependent on coal. The next most important energy source is petroleum, followed by hydroelectricity and natural gas. Thermal plants, principally burning coal, produce 84 percent of India’s electricity; and hydroelectric plants generate 12 percent. Although India remains self-sufficient in coal, the country must import petroleum to meet growing domestic demand. In 2003 imported fuels (principally petroleum) represented 29 percent of India’s total imports.

H

Services and Tourism

Service industries in India include transportation, trade, banking and insurance, real estate, and public administration and defense. Retail and wholesale trade are among the most important services. Major cities, such as Mumbai and Kolkata, are centers of such trade. Government service is also very important. India’s government provides many social services to its population, particularly in the fields of education, health, and public administration. India earns an increasing amount of foreign exchange from data processing and call-center services that are outsourced from businesses in the United States and other countries.

Tourism is another significant part of India’s service economy. In 2005, 3.9 million tourists visited the country. Foreign exchange earnings from tourism were more than $7.5 billion that year. The bulk of India’s tourists come from Bangladesh and Pakistan. Other major countries of origin include the United Kingdom, the United States, Sri Lanka, Germany, France, and Japan. Most foreign tourists visit a few tourist sites, such as the Taj Mahal and other monuments in Āgra; the “pink city” of Jaipur, known for its pink-hued architecture; and Delhi, with its magnificent Red Fort and many museums. Other tourist destinations include the rock-cut caves of Ajanta and Ellora, the temples at Khajurāho, and the beaches in Kerala, as well as cities such as Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, New Delhi, Vārānasi, and Udaipur.

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I

Transportation

India has a network of railroad lines that covers the entire country. The network is the largest in Asia and one of the largest in the world. The length of operated track is 63,465 km (39,435 mi). The network is badly in need of modernization. All railroad lines are publicly controlled, but some private-sector participation is being encouraged to help raise revenue. The system carries millions of passengers daily, but passenger traffic is heavily subsidized.

By 2002 there were 3.9 million km (2.4 million mi) of roads in India, of which 63 percent were paved. Each state operates a publicly owned bus company. The major Indian ports, including Kolkata, Mumbai, Chennai, Cochin, and Vishākhapatnam, are served by cargo carriers and passenger liners operating to all parts of the world. The port system is operating beyond its intended capacity, although efforts are under way to modernize and expand port facilities. India has a large merchant shipping fleet. The shipping industry is dominated by the Shipping Corporation of India, which is partially government owned. A comprehensive network of air routes connects the major cities and towns of the country. In the 1990s India opened up domestic air service to private airlines for competition with publicly owned Indian airlines, and air service greatly improved as a result.

J

Communications

The government-controlled postal services remain the backbone of India’s communication industry, handling billions of letters and parcels each year. The post office also transmits money orders in large amounts, mainly serving workers sending home part of their pay, and has a large number of savings certificate programs that serve the same population.

India’s telecommunications system has been expanding rapidly, especially since the government began liberalizing the sector in 1994. The country’s first privately owned telephone network was founded in 1998, and a state-held monopoly on international telecommunications services ended in 2002. The country had 14 main telephone lines per 1,000 persons in 1994, when the reforms began. By 2005 the number had increased to 46 per 1,000 and was increasing at a rapid rate, although still well below the world average of 172 per 1,000. Cellular telephone subscriptions are also on the rise, but exclusively among more affluent Indians. The majority of people in India only have access to public telephones, especially in rural areas. In the 1990s the government launched a major program to increase public access to telephone service in all areas of the country. One goal of the program was to install a public telephone in each of India’s approximately 600,000 villages; by 2002 this initiative had reached about 470,000 villages. Another goal was to set up public call offices (PCOs) in both rural and urban areas. More than 1 million PCOs had been established by 2002, and a number of these were being upgraded to provide Internet access. In 2005, 60 million Indians were online.

Thousands of newspapers are published in India. Most principal dailies publish from multiple cities, including the English-language Times of India, the Indian Express, the Hindustan Times, the Hindu, and the Statesman; and the Hindi-language Navbharat Times and the Punjab Kesari. Newspapers are privately owned in India.

The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting controls the country’s major broadcasting networks, All India Radio (AIR) and Doordarshan India (Television India). AIR broadcasts throughout the country with a network of more than 200 stations. The Indian government limits television broadcasting by private companies. Satellite television was introduced in India in 1991. Since the early 1990s there has been an exponential growth in television viewing, spurred in part by the spread of private cable systems and television broadcasts via satellite that bring news, sports, and entertainment from around the world.

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