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 a