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President sets out UPA’s agenda

	June 14, 2004

The pre-budget brief Lok Sabha session ended last week on a bitter note with an unrelenting opposition sticking to its demand for the removal of “tainted Ministers” but allowed adoption of the Motion of Thanks to the President’s Address. The motion was unanimously adopted by a voice vote without any debate after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh suggested that it be straightaway put to vote. The House remained paralysed for three days as NDA members refused to budge from their stand. The House will meet by the end of June to take up the Budget proposals.

President Abdul Kalam in his Address outlined the Manmohan Singh Government’s agenda for the next five years. The President spoke on a variety of subjects, from food to agriculture and jobs to reforms. The agenda of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government promises to ensure that the economy will grow by at least seven to eight per cent a year for a sustained period, the government will focus on employment generation and assure livelihood for every family. The Government will also focus on improving the income and the welfare of farmers, farm labour and workers. The Government will create new jobs in other areas such as village industries, textiles, handicrafts, horticulture, aquiculture, forestry, dairying and agro-processing to benefit rural and urban youth. At the same time, economic reforms will be speeded up and further reforms carried out in agriculture, industry and services. “The reforms will have a human face and will ensure that the benefits flowing from such reforms reach the urban poor and rural areas, where the vast majority of our population lives,” he said.

The President promised that the Government would undertake major tax reforms to significantly expand the base of taxpayers, to increase tax compliance and make tax administration citizen-friendly. But tax rates would be stable and conducive to growth, compliance and investment. Value Added Tax would be introduced in close cooperation with trade and industry. The commitment to eliminate the revenue deficit of the Central Government by 2009 has been reiterated along with the promise that subsidies would be targeted sharply at the poor and the needy.

The Government’s stance on public sector disinvestment also finds reflection in the President’s Address where it has been stated that privatisation will be considered on a case-by-case basis while chronically loss-making companies would either be sold off or closed. Successful, profit-making companies operating in a competitive environment would be granted full managerial and commercial autonomy.

Priority would be given to the development of infrastructure with encouragement to public-private partnership to expand infrastructure such as roads, ports, airports, power, railways, water supply and sanitation. Public expenditure on infrastructure would be raised and subsidies in such investments explicitly provided for in the budget.

On health and education, the President promised on behalf of the Government to increase public spending to 2-3 per cent of the gross domestic product over the next five years in the case of health and at least six per cent in the case of education, with half earmarked for primary and secondary education. A cess would be imposed on all Central taxes to finance the commitment to universalise access to quality basic education. The Government also promised to take steps to ensure the availability of life-saving drugs at reasonable prices.

The Address also covered the subject of the welfare of the Scheduled Castes and Tribes. The President said the Government would initiate a dialogue with political parties, industry and other bodies on how best the private sector could fulfil the aspirations of this particular section. More than 30 per cent of jobs are reserved for SC and ST candidates in the govt sector but the observers feel that the private sector may not fulfil the demand for reservation for this section.

Observers have expressed the opinion that there is a dilution of specific promises made in the President’s Address as compared to the commitment in the Common Minimum Programme (CMP). One of the most striking aspect of the CMP was the promise to provide a legal guarantee of 100 days of employment at minimum wages to one able-bodied person “in every rural, urban poor and lower-middle-class household.” But now it limits the beneficiaries of such legislation to rural households. A simple calculation based on the employment needs of some 100 million rural workers reveals that the annual financial outlay involved would be of the order of Rs.20,000 crores. So the Government will have no option but to implement it in a phased manner.

Moreover the CMP promised to start “in the interim... a massive food-for-work programme” but this too was missing in the President’s Address. The CMP promise to introduce in all primary and secondary schools a national cooked nutritious meal scheme “funded mainly by the Central Government” is also to be redeemed in “a phased manner.” Moreover, there is also a dilution of what was promised with respect to rural credit. While the CMP spoke of a doubling over the next three years of the flow of rural credit to the hard-pressed bulk of the rural population, the Presidential Address comes up with a vague assertion that the Government will “ensure that the flow of agricultural credit is significantly stepped up.”

Observers have pointed out that the Presidential Address skipped a vital issue like cross-border terrorism. The Government has, however, stressed the need for a meaningful dialogue with Pakistan. The government has not clarified its stand on the issue of internal security. But the President’s Address dwells on the misuse of the Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA) and promised to repeal it. The President, however, announced a new law to counter communal violence.

The President was extremely critical of the NDA Government on two points, communalism and inequitable distribution and use of resources. Dr Kalam said: “It is a matter of serious concern that the forces of communalism have been able to vitiate the atmosphere in the country leading to outbreak of riots, the most gruesome face of which was witnessed recently in Gujarat. The Government will adopt all possible measures to promote and maintain communal peace and harmony so that minorities feel completely secure. “My Government will enact a model law to deal with communal violence and encourage states to adopt it,” the President said.

The President’s speech was also critical on the question of distribution of resources. It said: “It is a matter of concern that regional imbalances have been accentuated not only by historical neglect but also by distortions in Plan allocations.



Key Cabinet committees

The new government has announced its plan of governance as distinct from the previous government. In the NDA’s cabinet system, the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) became most important discussing even political issues. The new Government has changed this.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has constituted two committees of the Cabinet the Committee on Security (CCS) and another Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs (CCPA) to initiate and oversee crucial decision-making. Both the committees will be headed by the Prime Minister. The two committees, along with the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) will become the focal points of decision-making on a day-to-day basis.

The Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) will include the Defence Minister (Pranab Mukherjee), the Home Minister (Shivraj Patil), the Finance Minister (P.Chidambaram), and the External Affairs Minister (Natwar Singh). The National Security Adviser, J.N. Dixit, will be an ex-officio member. The Army Chief often aids the CCS as do the chiefs of various intelligence agencies, as per the nature of urgency. During the Vajpayee Government, K.C. Pant, in his capacity as Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission, was also a member of the CCS.

The Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs (CCPA) will include the following cabinet members: Mukherjee (Defence), Arjun Singh (Human Resource Development), Sharad Pawar (Agriculture and Food), Laloo Prasad Yadav (Railways), Patil (Home), Chidambaram (Finance), Natwar Singh (External Affairs) and Dayanidhi Maran (Communications and IT). The Cabinet Secretary is Secretary to both the committees.

The CCPA will take all critical decisions on issues of political importance. The CCPA became a crucial forum during former Prime Minister Narasimha Rao’s time because he chose not to put in place its organisational counterpart, the Parliamentary Board in the Congress. During the Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi prime ministerial innings, the Parliamentary Board was the principal forum of political decision-making.

But analysts agree that the Prime Minister put together a political affairs committee that correctly reflects the spread of the coalition government’s political strength. Unlike the CCS that has only Congress Ministers, the CCPA has representatives of the three important political allies - the DMK, the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP). To that extent, according to observers, the CCPA will be the “executive” panel of the government, representing the best collective political wisdom available to the Prime Minister.



Sonia’s status vs. the Prime Minister’s

A new controversy has broken out over the powers and status of Congress president Sonia Gandhi. Although Manmohan Singh is the Prime Minister but Sonia’s shadow, observers feel, looms large over him. Reports that Law Minister H R Bhardwaj was of the view that Sonia Gandhi could access Government files in her capacity as chairperson of the CMP Implementation Committee has set off a media and political debate.

The Law Minister has already clarified : “The press report is totally incorrect. I had merely said that she (Sonia) can call for information regarding implementation of the CMP. As a senior minister, I know that only Cabinet ministers who have taken an oath of secrecy have access to confidential files. At the appropriate time I would clarify the matter in Parliament.”

Bharadwaj’s remarks were totally unnecessary. In fact, the coalition ministers have specialised in talking out of turn and putting the Prime Minister to embarrassment. Another Minister who has got into trouble is Natwar Singh whose comments in the US that India would review its position on Iraq have set off angry retorts from the Left, putting the Congress in an awkward position. Reportedly Sonia has asked the ministers to be discreet and guarded when making comments to the Press. In a democracy, this is the Prime Minister’s job. Some observers are deeply disturbed over this. Senior Congress ministers at the Centre have reportedly admitted that they take orders from “Madam”, on how they should discharge their functions. This suggests that the Prime Minister has been made irrelevant. His failure to assert his authority is contrary to the parliamentary system.

Political observers have also noted the fact that even foreign powers are granting a higher status to Ms Gandhi, with the Pakistani President, General Pervez Musharraf, Nepal’s King Gyanendra and the PLO’s Yasser Arafat having invited her.