Role of Government in Development Policies

Role of Government in Development Policies

1. Defence: This is an essential security function to protect our nation from our enemies. The Union government is responsible for creating and maintaining defence forces.

2. Foreign policy: In today’s world, we need to maintain friendly relationships with all the other countries in the world. We should also maintain cordial economic relationships through exports and imports, sending and receiving investments and labour. This service is also provided by the Union government.

3. Conduct of periodic elections: India is a democratic country. We elect our representatives to Parliament and state assemblies. Similarly the state governments conduct elections to local bodies within the state.

4. Law and order: Both the Union and state governments enact numerous laws to protect our rights, properties and to regulate our economy and society. To settle disputes, the Union government has a vibrant judicial system. State governments take the responsibility for administering the police force in respective states.

5. Public administration and provision of public goods: The government generally administers the economy and society through various departments, for example, revenue department, schools, hospitals, rural development and urban development. The local governments provide public goods like local roads, drainage, drinking water and waste collection and disposal.

6. Redistribution of income and poverty alleviation: Governments collect various taxes to finance the various activities mentioned earlier. The taxes are collected in a way that the high-income people can bring in more tax revenue to the government than the poor. The governments also spend money such that the poor are given some basic necessities of life like food, shelter, clothing education, health care and monthly income to the very poor persons. Thus collecting taxes and spending for the poor to reduce poverty.

7. Regulate the economy: The Union government, through the Reserve Bank of India, controls money supply and controls the interest rate, inflation and foreign exchange rate. The main objective is to remove too much of fluctuation in these rates. The Union Government also controls the economy through various other agencies such as Securities Exchange Board of India and Competition Commission of India. All the governments in India run public sector enterprises to provide important goods and services at affordable rates to the people.