Achievements@75 - India as Business Powerhouse

India has witnessed tremendous changes in the domain of business in the 75 years since it gained independence from British rule in 1947.Our First Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, presented the First Five-Year Plan to the Parliament of India in 1951. The First Five-year Plan mainly focused on the development of the primary sector and was based on the Harrod–Domar model with few modifications. The motto of the first five-year plan was agricultural development. The main objective was to solve different problems that formed due to the partition of the nation. Rebuilding the country after independence was the vision of this plan.Later in 1960, the Green Revolution was initiated in India by introducing high-yielding varieties of rice and wheat to increase food production in order to alleviate the country's hunger crisis during the second five year plan.

On July 1, 1955, the Government of India nationalised the Imperial Bank of India. The Imperial Bank came into existence on January 27, 1921. In 1955, RBI took a 60 per cent stake and renamed the Imperial Bank to State Bank of India. Now, it is India's largest state-owned banking and financial services company. Prior to the formation of RBI in 1935, the Imperial Bank of India served as the central bank for British India. Eventually, 14 other major banks including Allahabad Bank, Bank of Baroda, Bank of India, Bank of Maharashtra, Central Bank of India, Canara Bank, Dena Bank, Indian Bank, Indian Overseas Bank, Punjab National Bank, Syndicate Bank, UCO Bank, Union Bank and United Bank of India were also nationalised by the Indira Gandhi-led government on July 19, 1969.In 2020, the central government merged 10 state-run lenders to form four large banks. Following the consolidation, the country has 12 public sector banks, instead of 18.ome Indian business tycoons are named in Forbes Magazine's World's Billionaire List. Adani Group Chairman Gautam Adani stands at the fourth spot on the list, overtaking Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, while Mukesh Ambani, chairperson of Reliance Industries, figures at the10th spot. HCL Enterprise Founder Shiv Nadar ranks 66 on the list, while Cyrus Poonawalla, chairman and managing director of the Cyrus Poonawalla group ranks 74. Avenue Supermarts' founder Radhakishan Damani rounds up the list of Indian names ranked 88 on the Forbes list.