The Hindu Business Line : Govt to take stock of progress on reforms

WITH the pre-poll alliances among political parties marking the preparatory process for the advancing elections, the Government machinery is being galvanised to ensure that the development programmes and achievements of the NDA Government under the leadership of the Prime Minister, Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee, were highlighted to cash in on the pervasive feel-good factors in the economy.

Highly-placed sources in the Government told Business Line here that beginning on Monday and lasting for the whole week, the Committee of Secretaries headed by the Cabinet Secretary, Mr Kamal Pande, would deliberate on progress scored in the identified thrust areas of reform by way of stock-taking on the Government's priority agenda on reforms.

Though this is being construed as a routine exercise to identify deficiencies and give a push for action on areas of public interest particularly when in any case the year marks the general elections, the underlying message is that the NDA Government which has been accused of reform-fatigue in the last few months, cannot afford to remain silent and confirm the worst doubts being entertained by a section of Opposition parties and also industry and trade.

The sources said that among the 132 items being monitored by the Committee of Secretaries involving sectors such as agriculture, consumer affairs, drinking water supply scheme, food and public distribution, information and broadcasting, rural development and urban development, women and child, small-scale industries and a host of other departments, the Secretaries would review the progress on the reform front and come out with some concrete measures to ensure that such steps benefit a larger section of the populace.

The 132 items and the concurrent 31 items have all been finalised a year ago under the guidance of the Deputy Chairman, Planning Commission, Mr K.C. Pant, to ensure that the reform process gets the much-needed impetus so that the Tenth Plan target of 8 per cent GDP growth could be realised. Some of the items include strengthening Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) to make its testing capability beyond blemish, ensuring drinking water supply scheme both in urban and in rural areas and creation of employment opportunities through identified public programmes and reinforcing Indian system of medicine to fight common diseases afflicting poor people through community initiatives.

The sources recalled that only recently the Economic Adviser in the Prime Minister Office (PMO), Dr S. Narayan, chaired a meeting of the 31 thrust areas relating to schemes and projects that had been identified for monitoring by the Prime Minister.

In the meeting, the explosive growth of cellular phones and preference and use among young people for cell phone and also ready-to-eat fast foods fad among the growing younger population were discussed. It was pointed out that using the surplus foodgrains production and to reduce the carrying cost of foodgrains stock, more fast food shops to promote ready-to-eat foods need to be encouraged.