This paper presents a comparative study of P and PI controllers for a current source inverter (CSI) fed induction motor drive system. A dq model has been used which incorporates the induction motor and the inverter power supply with current feedback. The model is used first to generate the steady state curves to determine the operating point through computer simulations using the software package MATLAB. Then a transient analysis has been carried out for different values of the speed and current controller parameters. The controller value is adjusted by the Ziegler-Nichols method. It has been observed that the transient time to reach the steady state value is larger with the PI controller than with the P controller.