Budget Commentary/Mahesh Nair
And now for the economic explosions
A couple of months ago, the erstwhile finance minister P
Chidambaram
and industry minister Murasoli Maran had an excellent idea:
disband
the Foreign Investment Promotion Board, the nodal body that
channels foreign investment into India.
Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee has taken this piece of
advice to heart. Ever since he picked up the hotline from Pokhran
and heard A P J Abdul Kalam's voice proudly state, "Mission Successful"
(or as Newsweek claims, "The White House Has Fallen!") the Indian
prime minister has given a quiet burial to the FIPB.
Instead, he has now given the responsibility to attract
foreign investment to the Department of Atomic Energy and the
Defence Research & Development Organisation!
Depending on the inputs he received from these two
organisations on how fast India could attain nuclear weaponisation,
how good our nuclear delivery systems are, or how and where are we
storing our nuke stockpiles, the PM and his Cabinet have triggered off
an economic fission.
Their new motto: Forget swadeshi. Think economic
(radio)activism.
Consider these developments:
* The day after the first tests, Urban Development Minister Ram Jethamalani announced that foreign investment would be
welcome in the housing sector.
* Two days after the second round of blasts and just when the United States government had made it clear that it would impose economic sanctions, the ministry of steel & mines granted a licence to the
US-based Phelps Dodge, the world's biggest copper mining company to
mine in Bihar and also set up a 100 per cent subsidiary.
* The same day, Power Minister P R
Kumaramangalam announced
the
government's decision to grant counter-guarantees to three
mega power projects worth Rs 85 billion. These include the US-based
CMS-promoted Neyveli project, the Ispat-promoted Bhadrawati
project and the Hindujas and British National Power-promoted Vizag
project.
* On May 15, the petroleum ministry signed the production sharing contracts for 18 exploration blocks. Five US companies, and one each from Ireland and Australia are amongst the firms that have bagged thiscontract which has been hanging fire since 1994.
* On the same day, approvals were given to 34 proposals for prospecting and exploration in the mining sector covering an
area of 49,000 square kilometer in the mineral-rich states of
Bihar, Rajasthan, Gujarat, and Maharashtra. Fourteen of
these companies were from Australia, the first to openly criticise
Indian's nuclear tests. And 13 from the UK which has so far
abstained from announcing any sanctions.
A day later, exactly five days after the first series of
tests, the prime minister circulated his five-point Development Action
Plan to ministries and central departments. This plan will be
incorcoporated in the Union Budget to be released on June 1.
The focus will be on sectors such as information technology, agriculture, and
infrastructure (power, roads, petroleum, ports, telecom). According to
officials, projects worth Rs 800 billion are going to be given the green signal in the next few weeks. The government has also cleared hurdles for both foreign
and private participation in the construction and management of
ports.
Topping all the above will be the Union Budget. Expected
highlights include a massive increase in expenditure on the
infrastructure sector, and far reaching reforms on the financial sector (a
new policy on insurance, entry of private pension funds, etc).
Correct me if I am wrong, but when was the last time we saw
any Indian government act so fast and clear economic policies
specifically related to foreign investment?
The only time we did it was in the dark days of 1991 when Messrs P V Narasimha Rao and Manmohan Singh assumed office. The nation
was facing bankruptcy -- our reserves held gold sufficient to buy dollars for only two weeks to keep the engine of the Indian economy running! To survive Manmohan Singh introduced a clutch of economic reforms within the first two weeks.
It took all of seven years later, courtesy a nuclear bomb
and the furore of economic sanctions, for a government to act
swiftly again.
And here is my submission. Only when we are faced with a
crisis will we, the people and government of India, ever act boldly on
economic matters. Peaceful times are bad times for
economic growth, especially with regard to policy decisions. Not that
it should be. But, sadly, that is how it is.
Our policy makers act only when they have to, when there is
no other option. When all is quiet on the economic or national front,
all that our politicians and bureaucrats will do is twiddle their
their thumbs, demand colleagues to be included or dropped from the
Cabinet, lecture at seminars and push files back and forth.
North Block and South Block are better examples of sosegado than the backwater of Goa.
This is the frightening aspect. After this week and the next,
during which the Budget will be presented, will the government slip
into deep slumber again?
And pray, if the nuclear issue is resolved, what will it
take to
trigger off the next round of economic reforms? Do we have
to wait
for a natural catastrophe -- a Godzilla stomping on all our
sick public
sector units, a Deep Impact-like tidal wave swallowing our
short-sighted politicians-before there is another bout of
action on
the policy front?
The irony is that our policy-makers have made a virtue of
inaction.
For 40 years the Congress was proud of how it led India
on the
economic front. Then Manmohan Singh came along, caught the
existing economic policy by its tail, threw it away, and
replaced it a with a new one. There was a deafening silence. And then
came the applause.
Today, the Congress is proud of what Manmohan Singh
did.
Ditto for the BJP. When its coalition-led government came to
power they were claiming to the world how different their economic
policy would be, especially on the foreign investment front. Then
came the Bomb and the Sanctions. To compete, the BJP-led
government has temporarily buried swadeshi (after all, there is little it has done till now on the domestic industrial front). And pursued
foreign investment with a vengeance.
Tomorrow they will be proud of what they did.
We will all be proud too if our policy makers act without
waiting for a disaster to happen.
Mahesh Nair
Budget '98
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