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Tuesday,
January 28, 2003, Chandigarh, India  
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Uncertainty over Bathinda refinery President’s growth model Gehlot’s problems |
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Gutter man cometh!
BJP’s winning formula vs credibility
Is milk good for you?
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Uncertainty over Bathinda refinery A
cloud of uncertainty hangs over the Bathinda refinery after the Cabinet Committee on Disinvestment decided on Sunday to offload 34.01 per cent of its stake in Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd (HPCL) to a strategic partner. Although the Disinvestment Minister, Mr Arun Shourie, has given the assurance that if the bidders are not interested in pursuing the construction of HPCL’s Guru Gobind Singh Refinery at Bathinda, the government would either instruct the IOC or ONGC to complete the project. He should have been more specific. Before announcing the details of disinvestment in HPCL and BPCL, the Cabinet Committee on Disinvestment should have also set at rest the doubts raised in The Tribune on January 26 about the future of the Bathinda refinery and finalised which government agency would complete the project. Since no time frame has been fixed for completing the two oil PSUs’ disinvestment process, the fate of the Bathinda refinery, as also of BPCL’S Bina refinery in Madhya Pradesh, will continue to hang in the balance indefinitely. The government will first select the strategic partner, that is the highest bidding agency, which in turn might take its own time in assessing the project’s viability. Since the project is large and the quantum of funds required is considerable, the agency might dither and ultimately back out after wasting a lot of precious
time. There is no mention of any provision of the private buyer giving any undertaking of developing the project within a reasonable time period of say three to four years or facing a penalty for delay or for dropping the project at a later
stage. This is not how such prestigious national projects are treated. These cannot be left at the mercy of a private company. There are many loose ends that need to be tied up. The Centre’s lack of homework on this significant issue is surprising, particularly since the process of the government stake sell-off in the two oil majors is mired in controversy. Already, the Rs 10,000-crore project has been delayed unduly. The refinery project was cleared by the Narasimha Rao government during the tenure of Mr H.S.Brar as Chief Minister. The land for the project was acquired in December, 1997, the Defence Ministry gave its no-objection certificate in 1998 and its foundation stone was laid with much fanfare by Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee himself during the Chief Ministership of Mr Parkash Singh Badal. The BJP-SAD coalition had dubbed the project a landmark achievement and squeezed maximum political mileage out of it during the elections. But it failed to hasten the work on the crucial project, which has been seen as a blessing for the relatively backward area of Bathinda and is expected to benefit Punjab to the tune of Rs 800 crore annually, apart from creating direct and indirect employment for some 4,000 persons. Named after the 10th Sikh Guru, the refinery has become an emotive issue. The Tribune has closely monitored its progress and from time to time raised its voice whenever any hurdle was created. It is surprising that the Congress government headed by Capt Amarinder Singh, which claims development as its top priority, has done virtually nothing in speeding up the project. Instead, the state government has been dragging its feet in signing even the “deed of assurance” with HPCL. It will not be too much to expect Punjab’s prominent political parties and their leaders to sink their differences and unitedly take up this project with the Centre to clear the air of uncertainty and ensure an early completion of the refinery. |
| President’s growth model In his first address to the nation on the eve of Republic Day, President A. P. J. Abdul Kalam laid focus on the two-thirds of the country’s population living in the villages. In a development-oriented speech with an insignificant political content he cautioned the nation that in its endeavour to become a developed country by 2020, it must concentrate on the problems of rural India on a priority basis. The goal is impossible to achieve without designing a growth strategy in this manner. The President’s speech should open the eyes of our policy-makers, as problems of the rural people are rarely taken in view while formulating any action programme. First of all, he has made out a case for a second Green Revolution by increasing agricultural productivity, as there is a great demand for arable land which is shrinking fast. The truth is that the traditional cropping pattern has ceased to benefit the farmers as much as it should. Hence the need to shift to cereal production in a big way. This will enhance the productivity of agriculture and the income of the farming community. There is, of course, nothing new in this line of thinking, but the way the President has projected the farmers’ case may attract increased attention of the authorities concerned. In fact, a second Green Revolution may speed up India’s march towards the goal of a developed country. As a former scientist, he has prepared a workable prescription for empowering the rural people. He calls it “connectivity” having four specific components — physical, electronic, knowledge and economic. This means that there should be extensive networks of village roads, an effective communication system and professional and vocational institutions for ensuring economic connectivity, “leading to self-actuating people and economy”. The model — Providing Urban Amenities in Rural Areas
(PURA) — aimed at metamorphosing the face of rural India, if implemented honestly, can remove not only village poverty but also reverse the trend of population shifting from the rural areas to urban centres. This unidirectional movement of population is creating new and complicated problems. It has adversely affected every segment of life in cities and towns. Most village people shift to urban centres mainly in search of economic avenues. If such facilities are available in their own areas of residence, they may prefer to stay where they are. Moreover, if PURA becomes a reality, a number of people in the urban areas who are sick of city life may think of shifting to villages. This, in turn, will lead to the movement of capital too from the urban to the rural areas. As one can
visualise, such an India should be a much better place to live in. However, nothing is possible in the absence of an adequate security arrangement. An effective law and order maintenance system is a must for the success of the President’s growth model.
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Gehlot’s problems The Congress high command’s directive to Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot to promote two ministers — Ms Kamla Beniwal and Mr Banwari Lal Bairwa — as Deputy Chief Ministers must have come as a surprise to Mr
Gehlot. In principle, no Chief Minister wants a Deputy Chief Minister as it is felt that the latter, far from helping him in the smooth functioning of the government, would only create problems for him. Moreover, a Deputy Chief Minister would develop his own sphere of influence in the echelons of both the government and the party and ultimately emerge as an independent power centre, much to the chagrin of the Chief Minister. Against this background, the high command’s decision is primarily seen as an attempt by Ms Ambika
Soni, political secretary to the party president, Mrs Sonia Gandhi, to checkmate Mr
Gehlot. Reports suggest that Mr Gehlot has not been given a free hand by the party in running the affairs of the state. Ms
Soni, who is also the AICC general secretary in charge of the state, reportedly had her say during the Cabinet expansion in May, last year, and in the latest exercise. Apparently, the high command is worried over the bleak prospects of the party in the forthcoming elections. It wants to build an effective social coalition comprising all sections of society — the
Jats, the Scheduled Castes, the Scheduled Tribes, the Backward Castes, the Brahmins, the Gujjars and the Muslims. Of the two new Deputy Chief Ministers, Ms Beniwal is a Jat and Mr Bairwa a Scheduled Tribe. Clearly, despite his clean image, Mr Gehlot cannot boast of good governance. Issues like starvation deaths, some of his ministers being reportedly under cloud and natural calamities like drought have diluted the achievements of his government. The problems confronting Mr Gehlot are, no doubt, serious. The state is being run mostly on overdrafts and there is no financial discipline. The government has taken a loan of about Rs 15,000 crore in the last four years. Industrial recession has worsened the situation. Therefore, the party high command has taken some measures to refurbish the image of the government in the run-up to the elections. These include setting up a 14-member coordination committee headed by Ms Ambika Soni and district programme implementation committees with the Minister incharge of the district as the chairperson. In a deft move, the party has roped in senior leaders such as former Chief Minister Shiv Charan Mathur, PCC chief Girija
Vyas, Mr Nawal Kishore Sharma, Mr Ram Niwas Mirdha, Mr Kunwar Natwar Singh, Mr Jagannath Pahadia and senior MP Shish Ram
Ola. They have been included in the coordination committee to present a united face of the party. The new committees would achieve their objective if they help streamline the government and galvanise the party machinery. |
Side-effects of globalisation Globalisation of capital is nearly complete in India. Most of the restrictions on the inflow of foreign direct investment (FDI) have been removed. The government has reduced the upper limits of permissible FDI in almost all sectors. On the other hand government has liberalised the outflow of capital. Domestic banks have been permitted to invest in foreign money markets and bonds. Indian companies can issue shares in foreign countries and retain that money abroad. Indian mutual funds have been allowed to invest up to Rs 500 crore in foreign companies that have made some investment in India. Two-way free movement of capital is, therefore, nearly complete. This was supposed to be the prescription for economic growth. The argument was that India is a capital-scarce country. Free movement of capital will encourage foreign investors to come into the country. India’s capital scarcity will be removed. Foreign investors as well as the Indian economy will stand to gain. Foreign investors will be able to take some money back only if they make profit in India by contributing to the growth of the Indian economy. Yet growth has not taken place. According to the Economic Survey published by the Government of India, the average rate of growth of GDP in the eighties was 5.65 per cent per year, which marginally declined to 5.61 per cent in the nineties. Globalisation of capital has not produced the expected results. Management Guru C.K. Prahalad has raised this question in a speech delivered to the CII Partnership Summit at Hyderabad. He said, “It is not that we are short of resources both in the physical and financial sense. Food stocks are record levels as are forex reserves. Yet the investment climate in the last few years could not have been worse. There has been a systematic denigration of investment by the government and the public sector... There is no motivation to invest here. Meanwhile, successive governments of the Congress, the United Front and the BJP — have only been chanting the FDI mantra. But large-scale FDI has not come. On the contrary the government and the RBI are reduced to promoting investment abroad to prevent too great an accumulation of forex reserves... It is a matter of shame that we still cannot think of projects to improve our own well-being.” This is precisely what the Swadeshi economist like myself have been pleading since the beginning of the economic reforms. The present market-centred approach to globalisation is fundamentally flawed for two reasons. First, globalisation implies a global equalisation of wages at their lowest levels. In a globalised economy, the difference between the wages of a worker in the USA and India will be determined by the transport costs. These costs are nominal and hence the wages have to become nearly equal. The wages at the global level, however, will be low because the global supply of labour is virtually unlimited. A small increase in the wage rate from Rs 80 to Rs 100 per day brings forth an abundant supply of labour from our villages. The wage rates in the developing countries cannot increase substantially because a huge reserve army of underemployed is waiting to enter the market. This leads to a downward pressure on the wages in the industrial countries. The rising level of unemployment in the industrial countries is an indication of the building up of this pressure. The result is that there is no viable source of consumer demand in the global economy. The wages or levels of employment in the industrial countries are declining due to competition from the developing countries. The wages in the developing countries are stationary because of the existence of a reserve army of the unemployed. This absence of demand is leading to a lacklustre investment scenario. However, this is only one part of the story. Market competition also creates incentives for technological innovation, which create demand for investment. For example, the global slowdown of 1997 was broken by the investment demand in the information technology sector. The fortunes of the global economy are determined by the net impact of these contradictory forces. The global equalisation of wages takes the economy towards a slowdown while technological innovation creates buoyancy. At present there appears to be a hiatus in technological innovation and hence the tendency towards dominant slowdown. Globalisation of capital is unable to break this tendency and, therefore, access to global capital is not leading to increased investment. The second problem is that of the government bleeding the economy. The mantra of FDI has created a mentality that our own savings are both meagre and less relevant. The result is that our focus has shifted to attracting foreign capital instead of better utilisation of our own savings. Government consumption has been increasing. According to the Economic Survey, the public sector savings were around 4 per cent in the late seventies, 3 per cent in the eighties and 1 per cent in the nineties. In 2000-01 this has gone into the negative territory at (-) 1.7 per cent. The government has stopped making investment, in infrastructure, for example. The demand for steel and cement in the construction of highways and dams is not created. Instead the government money finds its way into the Swiss banks and gold and leads to a demand contraction. The poor rate of growth of the Indian economy can be traced to low wages, absence of technological innovation and a decline in public investment. In this situation, globalisation of capital has little impact. Capital flows in the economy behave like oil on water. It does not integrate with the host economy. The only way to break this logjam is to consciously create more demand for labour. The free play of the market has to be restricted and job-eating technologies, such as harvesters and excavators, have to be prohibited in order to generate greater use of labour. Only then will wage payments increase and a sustainable consumer demand may be created in the market. But such policies cannot be implemented at the national level in the global economy. Prohibiting the use of harvesters implies that the cost of wheat in the Indian economy will increase and it will be priced out of the global market. Wheat produced with mechanised machines will be imported. Labour-intensive production can be undertaken only if adequate
protection is provided to it. But this cannot be done because it stands against the principle of free market. Thus globalisation has to lead to a decline in growth. That is precisely what is happening in India. It is time we looked inward. We should indeed access global capital. But we need to promote labour-intensive industries and increase public investment in order to secure growth. |
Gutter man cometh! Every monsoon the sewerage system of our old bungalow — with as many toilets and verandas as the rooms — gets choked. Last year’s belated heavy downpour caught us completely unawares. The man for such a season is Kalu Ram. He is the municipal safai-karamchari, who is usually found sitting smoking a bidi under the comer kachnar grove; where also sit the old cobbler, the roadside barber and other idlers. On receiving our SOS, Kalu arrives for the rescue mission with his assortment of rods and of wires. Straight away getting to work, assisted by his gawky, teenaged son Chhotu, he makes mysterious tapping noises on the manhole covers; listening for sounds beneath; much as a cardiologist uses his stethoscope looking for choked arteries. Suddenly he strikes“gold” — and opens up a cover with a flourish, to point out at the flooded manhole below. It’s time now for some “angioplasty” by the “gutter doctor”. He takes off his clothes, covers his nose with a piece of cloth, and carefully slinks down into the gutter. Prodding for the choked outlet, the long, coiled wire is inserted into a pipe with a torque-like rotation, pushing it deeper and deeper. But suddenly it is pulled out; as Kalu frowns with a frustrated disapproval. As I look down below to peep at the mysteries of the gutter; I’m repelled by the stench and the sight of ...geek, all that muck! But for the men at work; it’s all part of the job. This time he chooses another pipe, and it undergoes the same drill. The wire makes little progress at first; but then suddenly Kalu’s face breaks into a big grin almost saying “Eureka”! At long last, the almost entire length of the wire is devoured by the gutter. A big gurgling sound emanates from the flooded manhole, and suddenly the water level begins to lower. He now yells to Chhotu to go to the other end with the rod and descend into the connecting gutter. The father and son exchange some “technical” notes; and then the “maestro”, too, moves on there to give it the “master-stroke”. And hey, pronto — water is flowing like a hill torrent now! Mission accomplished, I offer them baksheesh, and over a cup of tea we exchange some monsoon maladies. Out of sheer curiosity, I ask Chhotu about his studies and aspirations. A shy answer: “A ‘computer engineer,’ sahib.” My heart wells up with pride. I give him a gentle pat and put some money into his small hands. As the two walk away, I can see a man in the making. And one — who quite literally rose from the gutters. |
BJP’s winning formula vs credibility The BJP accounts for two significant contributions to Indian political practices and statecraft. The party can set any time an impossible and hazardous agenda on the nation and tie down the rivals to spending all their energies desperately defending themselves. The party has also successfully experimented with the practice of resorting to vote catching tricks without so much of a lofty veneer. The two experiments have come in for further trials during the recent debate within the BJP and through its leaders' political pronouncements. Election politics is essentially a game of fooling the voters into supporting the respective party on the basis of an illusive package of promises. In principle, political parties place their programmes and policies before the people on the basis of which the voters exercise their franchise. But advent of modern public opinion engineering has reversed the process. The BJP has now done away with hypocrisy. Mr Narendra Modi's election strategy based on naked Muslim bashing was initially discouraged not on ideological ground but due to its consequences on the NDA government. After the Gujarat success the party officially said it would replicate Moditva elsewhere. Its leaders publicly said later Hindutva would not sell so well in Himachal Pradesh and hence it would not be made an issue there. Every game plan is so blunt. As a dominant force, the new trend will soon be picked up by others as well. The other attribute of the BJP looks totally inimitable. The ease with which the party has been able to change its poll strategies to suit each opportunistic situation and impose them on others has been really amazing. During the past four years it set its own agenda on every occasion. Others always remained defensive whether it is Kargil 'victory' in taking back lost territory, terrorism or security. The Opposition has not been able to pin down the government on its innumerable failures not even once. The alarming rise in terrorism and threat to national security have entirely been due to the government's failures. Instead of taking an offensive posture on such failures, the Opposition finds itself apologetic for no faults of theirs. Some attribute this superior advantage of the BJP to its media control. Whatever the reason, this remarkable ability in political management is bound to keep the Opposition in a state of seige and stupor. It has been the VHP that occasionally exposes the misuse of Hindutva to wrest votes and retain power. The Opposition has also failed to expose the prevarication and obfuscation being indulged in by the different arms of the RSS Parivar. Partly these have been due to conflicts and tussle for domination within the Parivar. But such differences are also being used as a clever strategy to confuse the Opposition and putting the NDA allies on notice. It seems to have worked fairly well on both counts. So far, there has been no serious protests from the allies to the BJP's initial decision to launch election campaigns based on religious hatred. Token protests by the Samata or National Conference have, by and large, been ignored. The BJP hardly bothers about the losing parties like NC which do not have any numerical leverage in Parliament. Samata would not mind so long as its two senior leaders are not disturbed and Bihar is kept aloof from the riot-based election strategy. Sharad Yadav, that compulsive rebel of the Janata days, only wants to enjoy ministerial power so long as he can. Mamata is still hoping against hope. Parties like the TDP and the DMK which have a more serious stake in secular credentials, have their own reasons to avert any direct confrontation with the BJP. Mr Chandrababu Naidu has a long-term strategy up his selves. He has been quietly expanding his base through his dual strategy of fast development and good governance. These are expected to eventually wean away substantial middle class votes from the BJP. After the Gujarat elections there have been at least a dozen self-contradictory statements by senior leaders like Mr Vajpayee, Mr Advani, Mr Venkaiah Naidu and the BJP spokespersons on controversial issues like adherence to the Hindutva and abandoning the NDA agenda for state elections. This has puzzled even some knowledgeable party insiders. The latest official position as enunciated by Mr Venkaiah Naidu is that the BJP would confine to the NDA policies even for the forthcoming Assembly elections. The ruling party circles do not take this as 'final'. In this extremely strange political climate, the BJP is pretty confident that it could get away with any kind of prevarication. The various Parivar outfits, interest groups within the BJP and the people as a whole have now been used to such frequent self-contradictory utterances. What is really being done is to try different winning formulae in different states. This will continue until 2004 Lok Sabha polls. While obfuscation and prevarication may turn out to be a cunning game plan to mislead the voters, it has also caused a crisis of confidence and identity. No one can be sure of what exactly the ruling party's policy is and what it stands for on vital issues. Those who deal with India look things at its entirety, not just what figures in official papers or empty ministerial pronouncements at seminars. They naturally view the shifting policies and inconsistencies as a sign of instability and unreliability. For them it is foolhardy to differentiate between domestic and national policies. Those who do hard business want stable, long-term policies free of zig-zags, on which they could make their financial decisions. Those who commit huge investments would not like to be victims at the hands of political vagrants. Such decisions are never made on the basis of daily shifting pronouncements by the senior ruling politicians. A coherent national policy on every aspect of the governance alone can restore our credibility as a nation. Such trust is more critical for investment rather than the sale of a hundred
PSUs. |
Is milk good for you? Parents in many parts of the world have long urged their children: “Drink up your milk. It’s good for you.” But is it? New research has raised doubts in New Zealand, one of the world’s biggest milk producers and responsible for about one-third of all the dairy products traded over international borders. A study involving 20 countries published in the New Zealand Medical Journal has found a significant link between drinking milk containing the A-1 beta case in protein and the national rate of heart disease and insulin dependent diabetes. A researcher, Dr Murray Laugesen, said populations that consumed a lot of A-1 milk had a higher rate of heart disease than countries whose cows produced milk containing dominantly the alternative A-2 protein. There was also a significant correlation between the A-1 milk consumption and childhood diabetes that requires treatment with insulin, he said. New Zealand’s Food Safety Authority and Ministry of Health immediately issued a joint statement saying the results were inconclusive and no reason for people to stop drinking milk. “Milk is nutritious and beneficial and should remain part of a balanced diet,” the statement said.
DPA
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The purchaser of flesh performs himsa (violence) by his wealth; he who eats flesh does so by enjoying its taste; the killer does himsa by actually trying and killing the animal. Thus, there are three forms of killing: he who brings flesh or sends for it; he who cuts off the limbs of an animal, and he who purchases, sells or cooks flesh and eats it—all of these are to be considered meat-eaters. — The Mahabharata |
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