The Hindu Business Line : `Congress keen on reforms'

THE reforms party would go on merrily, no matter which parties join hand with the Congress to form the new Government. Even the Left Front might not be able to be party-spoilers. Or so the Congress feels.

"We do not see any problem (with the Left parties) especially as both Congress and the Left Front were involved in the United Front Government between 1996 and 1998 which carried forward the economic reforms," Mr Jairam Ramesh, Secretary, Economic Affairs, Congress, said in an exclusive chat with Business Line. He said that the Congress and its allies would soon come out with a Common Minimum Programme.

Mr Jairam Ramesh said, however, that the disinvestment programme might take a different shape in the days to come. In what would have instant appeal with the Left, he ruled out privatisation of "strategic" companies such as IOC and ONGC.

"We can see compulsions to sell off hotels but there are key strategic sectors where public sector must remain. I have opposed the privatisation of IOC and ONGC, and privatisation of anything that leads to loss of competition. If the public and private sectors can co-exist in China then why not here?" he said.

The Left parties have been against disinvestment in the blue-chip public sector undertakings (PSUs) such as HPCL and BPCL for which the part-offloading of Government equity was in the offing had the NDA come back to power.

Mr Jairam Ramesh also said that FDI in retailing was not likely to come about under the new Government. "Though I do not foresee any reversal in sectoral caps, we need to streamline the FDI policy which has been ad-hoc and non-transparent. FDI in retailing will not be on the cards," he said.

On the power sector, Mr Jairam Ramesh said that the Government would look at private-public participation whereby the public sector companies can be involved in generation while distribution could be in private hands.

On providing free power to farmers in Andhra Pradesh, he said that the response was to a specific situation where 3,000 farmers had committed suicide. "It was an emergency response to an emergency crisis," he added.

Other senior Congress leaders also expressed their commitment to reforms. "The Congress party would give a further impetus to reforms. We will ensure that economic reforms reach out to the poor people as well. Growth will not be at the cost of agriculture. We are not against disinvestment as such, but we did not agree with the NDA Government's policies in total," said Congress leader and a former speaker of Lok Sabha, Mr Shivraj Patil.

However, with the Left as an ally there could be resistance in areas such as labour laws reforms and bringing down Government stake in public sector banks below 51 per cent. There is also likely to be stiff resistance on hiking foreign direct investment limits in insurance and telecom.