This book brings together three essays of Dr Chelliah on reforms and poverty alleviation. Together they unravel the working of the Indian political economy and explain the causes behind persistent poverty in the country despite economic growth. The essays address the issues of effective means of poverty reduction by the states, reforms of federal fiscal relations and taxes.

Dr Chelliah's central premise is that the major fault of India's economic policy has been that it was largely based on democratic socialist thought, thereby entrusting the government with the greatest responsibility, but without delineating in sufficient detail of how the government should respond to the challenge. Having explained that, he takes the next step of suggesting innovative policy reforms that would help the states lagging behind to develop. In doing that, among other things, he makes various tax reform recommendations like those for personal income tax, corporate income tax and wealth tax among others.

This book will be invaluable for students and scholars of development economics, political economy, public finance, public administration and economics.