India’s government-regulated and largely government-owned banking system is well developed. Its principal institution is the Reserve Bank of India (founded 1935), which regulates the circulation of banknotes, manages the country’s reserves of foreign exchange, and operates the currency and credit system. With the nationalization of the country’s 14 largest commercial banks in 1969 and further nationalizations in 1980, most commercial banking passed into the public sector. In 1975 the government instituted a system of regional rural banks, the principal purpose of which was to meet the credit needs of small farmers and tenants. This has gone a long way toward lessening the strength of rapacious village moneylenders, whose rates of interest were typically so exorbitant that their borrowers were left interminably in their debt. Other banks have been established by the central government to provide credits promoting various types of industry and foreign trade. Many foreign banks maintain branch offices in India, and Indian banks maintain offices in numerous foreign countries.

Stock exchanges do not play the prominent role in India that they do in more affluent capitalist societies. Nevertheless, they do exist in most of the largest Indian cities and facilitate the flow of capital in the form of securities under rules set down by the Ministry of Finance.

Trade

The volume of India’s foreign trade, given the diversity of its economic base, is low. There is, moreover, a chronic and large foreign trade deficit, which is aggravated by substantial imports of smuggled goods, mostly luxuries.

Among the wide range of exports, no single type of commodity occupies a dominant position. In terms of value, gems and jewelry (particularly for the Middle Eastern market) long held the leading position, followed by ready-made garments (reflecting India’s large pool of cheap labour) and leather and leather products (owing to both cheap labour and the country’s large number of cattle). However, since the turn of the 21st century, engineering products have become the leading export, and chemicals and chemical products and food and agricultural products have slipped in behind gems and jewelry. Imports are highly diverse and include petroleum and petroleum products, precious metals, and chemicals and chemical products.

India’s trade links are worldwide. The United States and the former Soviet Union were long the principal destinations for India’s exports (often, in the latter case, under barter arrangements). The United States remains a major destination for Indian goods, and China (including Hong Kong) and the United Arab Emirates also are important. The main import sources are China, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and the United States.

Services

Like most countries with a socialist tradition, India has an extensive bureaucracy, but it is also one that has contributed significantly to social and economic growth. The country’s economic growth, for instance, has been greatly facilitated by its considerable engineering expertise. Most large-scale building activities—such as the construction of railroads, national and state highways, harbours, hydroelectric and irrigation projects, and government-owned factories and hotels—have been built by government-managed construction agencies, the largest of which is the Central Department of Public Works.

Beginning in the 1990s, the private sector contributed greatly to the growth of services with the establishment of a robust computer software and services industry, located largely in the urban areas of Bengaluru (Bangalore) and Hyderabad. With a large number of English speakers, India also emerged as a low-cost alternative for U.S. telecommunications companies and other enterprises to establish telephone call centers. India has remained a prime destination for tourists from both Europe and the Americas, and tourism has been a major source of foreign exchange.

Labour and taxation

Much of the organized sector is unionized, and strikes are frequent and often protracted. Many of the unions are affiliated with one of a number of government-recognized and regulated all-India “central” trade union organizations, several of which have membership in the millions. The more important of these are affiliated with national political parties.

Taxes are levied in India at the federal, state, and local levels. At the national level, the Union government collects income tax, customs duties, and tariffs and assesses value-added taxes such as sales tax. The states raise much of their revenue through the collection of stamp taxes (for the issuance of various licenses) and through the collection of agricultural tax. Local governments collect income in the form of property taxes and fees for services.

Transportation and telecommunications

At independence, India had a transportation system superior to that of any other large postcolonial region. In the decades that followed, it built steadily on that base, and railroads in particular formed the sinews that initially bound the new nation together. Although railroads have continued to carry the bulk of goods traffic, there has been a steady increase in the relative dependence on roads and motorized transport, and all modes of transport—from human porters and animal traction (India still has millions of bullock carts) to the most modern aircraft—find niches in which they are the preferred and sometimes the sole means for moving people and goods.