Have you ever felt frustrated that you made a studied proposal, either in a published article, or in a speech or by writing to the government, but it was not acted upon? If you have, don’t despair. You are in excellent company; in fact in the company of India’s most illustrious industrialist, the late JRD Tata.

Sixty years ago, he anticipated that India’s independence was round the corner; and that India would need a much faster and more planned economic development. He brought together some of India’s foremost industrialists and took a lead in framing and bringing out in 1944, in two slim parts, A Plan For The Economic Development of India, or the so-called Bombay Plan (BP). It is a remarkable document, but in Independent India, precious little notice of it was taken by Nehru, by the government of India and by the Planning Commission.

It took 42 years for the government to acknowledge, in 1986, through the voice of R Venkataraman, then Vice-President of India, that the BP was one of JRD’s contributions to India!