Underscore some of India’s most crucial economic challenges at the time of independence.

Indian economy was under developed and backward at the time of independence. Some crucial economic challenges that Indian economy has to face at the time of independence are -

1) Low agricultural productivity: Agriculture was the main occupation at that time and more than 70% of the total population was engaged in agriculture but the total output was very low and as the result of partition the major productive land was under the territory of Pakistan.

2) Industrial sector: There were not many industries in India and the investing power of Indians was also not very strong. The capital was generally invested by the foreigners in the existing industries.

3) An important economic challenge for India was to increase the share of industrial sector in India's GDP.

4) Low infrastructure development: Though the British brought significant infrastructure development in the country but it was all for their own interest and not sufficient to improve the performance of agricultural and industrial sector of India. So it became necessary to upgrade and modernize the existing infrastructure

5) Some other challenges were -

a. Decline of the handicraft industry

b. Low national income and per capita income

c. Unemployment and poverty

d. The economic inequalities