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 | Survey, Rly Budget not on same wavelength Our Correspondent That no genuinely democratic government can afford to have uniform, monolithic views on every issue is a truism. In a coalition regime, the differences are more than nuanced; and in something as variegated as the United Progressive Alliance (UPA), the differences are sharp rather than nuanced. This became evident as the UPA Government tabled two important documents in Parliament, Economic Survey (2008-09) and the Railway Budget. While the former, apart from reviewing and analyzing the economy, came up with a wish-list of economists, Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee chose to tread the much-beaten track of populism. Among other things, Manmohan Singh’s Government favored: the passing of the Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority Bill, 200, and the Forward Contracts (Regulation) Amendment Bill, 2006 and the Insurance Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2006; the raising of foreign equity share in insurance to 49 per cent and allowing 100 per cent foreign equity in a special category of insurance companies that provide all types of insurance (e.g. health, weather) to rural residents and for all agricultural related activities including agro-processing. It also wanted foreign direct investment (FDI) in multi-format retail, starting with food retailing; hike in FDI limit in defence industries to 49 per cent (from 26 per cent ); decontrol of sugar and fertilizer industry; converting any producer subsidies into direct consumer subsidies; curbs on drug price control. It was as if the buddies of free market economist, Dr Singh, worked on the Survey and tried to convince everybody about what needs to be done. The Railway Budget, on the other hand, remained an exercise in electoral politics, with Banerjee leaving no stone unturned to woo the people of West Bengal. The Communist Party of India (Marxist)’s leader in the Lok Sabha, Basudeb Acharia, rightly said that her Budget was the manifesto for 2011 Assembly elections in the state. In her speech in the Lower House she asked “whether railway projects are to be measured only on the scale of ‘economic viability’ or do we also need to look at the ‘social viability’ of these projects?” Well, the honest answer is: none of the above; what matters for her, and most politicians, is ‘electoral viability.’ Her statements resembled the speeches undergraduate students used to make in university debates a quarter of a century back. “Are the fruits of development to be restricted only to a privileged few and not to the teeming populations in remote and backward areas of our country?” These were a far cry from the reformist agenda that the Survey favoured; the differences are not tangential but fundamental. The Prime Minister and his Cabinet may try to contain Dr Singh and his warriors. The battle has begun. Posted on : 7/7/2009 Mail this article to your friend |