M A I N   N E W S

No major changes in economic policy
Congress harps on ‘garib and aam admi’
Anita Katyal
Tribune News Service

Rajiv Nagar (Hyderabad), January 22
Hemmed in by the Left parties and its own commitment to the “garib and aam admi”, the Congress party’s economic resolution today struck a fine balance between liberalisation and its commitment to the welfare of the poor, disadvantaged and the deprived.

Continuing with its old slogan of “reforms with a human face,”, the Congress promised to eradicate poverty and generate employment while pledging itself to the task of making India an economic superpower. In this connection, it detailed the various measures already initiated by the UPA to address the problems of the farmers and other weaker sections besides setting the future agenda for the government.

The resolution, which was moved by Veerappa Moily at the AICC plenary session today, has not gone beyond the UPA government’s common minimum programme (CMP) with the express purpose of ensuring a degree of convergence of views between the party and the ruling alliance. The cautious approach on almost all sensitive issues stems from the party’s desire to take care of the more “Left -of- Centre elements” in its own party and addressing the sensitivities of its key ally, the Left parties.

Consequently, the resolution was silent on labour reforms and FDI in retail, fudged the issue on disinvestment of public sector undertakings and asked the government not to cut subsidies for families below the poverty line, an issue which had only recently provoked an uproar from the Left and criticised by the Congress itself. The proposal to bring a law on providing quotas in the private sector appears to have fallen by the wayside as the economic resolution has favoured a policy on affirmative action.

Finance minister P. Chidambaram, who spoke to presspersons on the margins of the plenary, was at pains to state that the Left was not impeding economic growth, that disinvestment is not on the backburner while parrying all questions on labour reforms and FDI in retail trade. He repeatedly maintained that the government intended to fulfill its social obligations and that he would find the necessary resources for its flagship programmes like the midday meal scheme and national rural employment guarantee programme.

Mr Chidambaram also admitted that there was a mismatch between the government and party’s position on disinvestment and privatisation. The ambiguity over the terms privatisation and disinvestment which had provoked a strong protest from the Left parties when the UPA government decided to offload its stake in BHEL on the plea that it is not privatisation but disinvestment. Mr Chidambaram admitted that the government had subsequently decided not to go in for disinvestment in any navratna but will instead dilute its holding in non-navratna PSUs, a policy which has the approval of all.

The Congress resolution has instead gone by the government’s original position, stating that there should be no privatisation of navratna companies while disinvestment in other cases should be undertaken on a case-to-case basis to raise resources for the National Investment Fund set up by the government for social sector programmes.

The Finance Minister painted a rosy picture of the country’s economy given that growth rate is close to 7 per cent, investments are booming, exports are growing and inflation is firmly in check, having come down to less than 5 per cent. At the same time, he said, the government had not reneged on its commitment to farmers having exceeded its targets on extension of farm credit.