Bagicha Singh Minhas

Padma Bhushan Dr. Bagicha Singh Minhas was an eminent Indian economist(1929--2005).

"'The Financial Express Award for Economics 1999:Presented to Dr. Bagicha Singh MinhasAt the Annual Conference of the Indian Economic Association at Amritsar on December 27, 1999."'

CITATIONEconomists in any part of the world would have sufficient reasons to boast when they have in their midst an economist and expert of the calibre of Professor B.S. Minhas. In presenting The Financial Express Award for Economics 1999 to him, we are recognising a social scientist of high merit and econometrician of distinction and a teacher and a researcher of excellence. Above all Dr. Minhas has a many- sidedness of his own and a mind that ticks with originality.

Born in 1929 in the land of the five rivers, Dr. Minhas obtained his first degree of BSc (agriculture) from Khalsa College, Amritsar, and a Master’s degree in economics from Punjab University. He then obtained another degree from the University of Illinois, USA, and followed it up with a PhD in economics from Stanford University, USA. At every level in his academic career, Dr. Minhas came out with flying colours and obtained recognition as a student of outstanding merit. For sometime, he taught economics at Stanford as Assistant Professor, but later returned to India as a Research Professor and became Head of the Planning Division at the Indian Statistical Institute from 1986 to 1971.

That Dr. Minhas had an excellent combination of analytical faculties, a trained mind and a real for the agricultural as well as non-agricultural sectors of the economy was soon recognized and he was asked to take a leading role in the Indian planning as a member of the Indian Planning Commission from 1971 to 1973. Simultaneously, in 1972-73, Dr. Minhas was appointed a member of the Finance Commission. He made his mark on planning strategies as well as financial analysis. His sharp mind, combined with his extraordinary awareness, teaching ability and debating competence, made him a formidable proponent of big ideas and a devastating opponent of weak and fuzzy notions and economic policies.

For sometime in the late Sixties and Seventies, Dr. Minhas worked as a Consultant to the World Bank at Washington D.C. and the Statistics and Survey Division of the Food and Agricultural Organization (Rome). In 1976 – 78, he worked as a Senior Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) at the University of Sussex in the UK and, a little later, he held distinguished appointments as Visiting Professor at John Hopkins and as Rufus Putnam Visiting Professor at Ohio. From 1981 to 1984, he served as Secretary General of the Afro-Asian Rural Reconstruction Organization and also had the distinction of serving as Chairman of the National Sample Survey (NSS) Organization (1980-90), one of the most extensive as well as intensive economic survey outfits in the world. Here as well as in the Planning Commission, Dr. Minhas’s innovative mind led him to break new grounds and recommend strategies, procedures and policies for improving the economy in substantial degree. Whatever Dr. Minhas chose to work on, he left on it the indelible impact of his expertise and high analytical calibre. Whether it was the area of agricultural development, planning strategies or statistical and econometric formulations, he made his mark and improved the quality of work in that realm.

Among his many feats, Dr. Minhas has been a Fellow of the Econometric Society (1973), a National Fellow at the Indian Council of Social Science Research (1990-92) and a life member of the American Economic Association. From 1992 to 1993, he was the President of the Indian Economic Society and, from 1994 to 1998, the President of the Indian Association for Research in National Income & Wealth. There is no end to the many distinctions, awards and honors which he has received, nor a limit to his monographs and articles of outstanding merit in numerous journals of India and the world.

The Financial Express is delighted and honored to present to Dr. Minhas, under the auspices pf the Indian Economic Association, “The Financial Express Award for Economics-1999”.