All he knew of the ills of the licence raj were complaints from his son Prabhakara. A few years earlier, Prabhakara had carped about how licences for the production of aluminium conductors used in the transmission of power were being cornered by monopolists.73 Those who already had a licence would obtain the other licences under fictitious names, and then not use them. This artificially filled the ‘quota’ of licences without improving the supply, thereby increasing prices. While Narasimha Rao was appalled at how government policies were being manipulated thus, he did not learn the larger
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