The Hindu Business Line : UPA's Common Minimum Programme

THE debate over the pros and cons of free electricity to farmers has revived in an acute form following the electoral reverses in States such as Andhra Pradesh, Punjab and Tamil Nadu suffered by the ruling parties which had withdrawn the facility. Elites in ivory towers are apt to attack supply of free power as populist by quoting the Americanism against free lunches. The Prime Minister too has expressed himself in favour of levying some sort of user charges for services provided to various sections.

On the other side, the founder of Shetkari Sanghatana, Mr Sharad Joshi, persuasively argues that subsidy for power is fully justified in a country where agriculture is at the mercy of rain-Gods, where the quality of supply is poor and where prevails a regime of support prices that do not cover even the production costs. Whatever that be, and Dr Manmohan Singh's caveat notwithstanding, the UPA Government is in no position to take on the farmers' lobby when it is yet to find its feet. So, it must think beyond the dot to get round the problem.

It must be remembered that electricity cannot be eaten and, therefore, is invariably put to some productive use or other. Instead of agonising over the supply of free electricity to farmers, the Government could have a study undertaken by an independent expert group computing the value of the increase in farm production and productivity free electricity helps achieve and comparing it with the subsidy it entails: It cannot be considered a bad bargain if the net accretion to the exchequer works out to be more than the subsidies.

Meanwhile, it may be possible to recoup a part of the outgo on this account by making the farmers earning above a stipulated slab liable to payment of base tariff for power as well as agricultural income tax. Also, metering the supply will help check clandestine drawal and properly account for the units generated and distributed.

The CMP has done a service by turning the spotlight and triggering a healthy national discourse on the relevance of the public sector and the scope of privatisation and disinvestment in the era of liberalisation and globalisation. The UPA's viewpoints on public sector and disinvestment are measured and defensible, free from a dogmatic or theoretical approach, such as what many free-market votaries on the one side and Leftist ideologues on the other routinely tend to adopt.

Buttress and bulwark

There can be no question that the public sector has been the buttress and bulwark of the country's economy at a critical period in the early years of Independence when the private sector did not have the capital or the technology needed to provide the goods and services and the capacity to take them to far-flung, especially backward, areas.

The expansion of the private sector and its financial and technical clout in the years since have no doubt given it sufficient range and reach, but it is yet to convincingly demonstrate its capacity to cope with the exacting demands of competitive economy in respect of product quality, attention to complaints, prompt service, social responsibility and ethical dealings.

The public sector units (PSUs), standing out in scale and size of operations, technological innovations, professional competence and profitability and serving the country's strategic interests, provide the necessary safeguard against the social fabric being torn apart in a free-for-all, plunging the country into economic colonialism. From this standpoint, the UPA's commitment to a strong and effective public sector achieving its commercial objectives with a social conscience, and its declared policy of proceeding with disinvestment/privatisation on a "transparent, consultative" case-by-case basis cannot be faulted.

If the PSUs are really to provide the underpinning for the economy and hold their own in a competitive environment, the Government should give them a free hand in formulating their schemes and programmes.

Successive governments have been categorical in promising full managerial and commercial autonomy to PSUs, but, in practice, old habits of interference in day-to-day affairs die hard. The CMP too undertakes to follow a hands-off policy, and it is essential for the UPA to live up to it.

Vital criteria

The CMP's stress on increasing the outlay on education and health is welcome, but the imposition of a cess on all Central taxes for mobilising funds for universal access to quality basic education raises misgivings.

A similar power to levy an education cess exists in the various Municipal and Corporations Acts in force in States, but almost always, the total amount of cess collected is not kept apart and gets mixed up with the general revenues of the local bodies and misused for other, often wasteful, purposes. In view of the permissive and profligate nature of public expenditure, the UPA Government should put in place a stringent fool-cum-knave proof system to keep the additional money thus collected in a special reserve pool and submit to Parliament a proper account of its utilisation.

Internal security and foreign policy — two of the vital criteria by which the domestic and external standing of any Government is judged — get somewhat cursory treatment in an otherwise painstakingly drawn up document.

The force of its assertion that there will be no compromise in the fight against terrorism is diluted by the decision to repeal the Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA), on the ground that it had been "grossly misused". All one can say is that the chances of its repeal being made up by strict enforcement of existing laws, as mentioned in the CMP, are remote, given the nature of the soft state that India is.

However, it is futile to try to deflect the UPA partners from the course they are determined to pursue. No matter. History will repeat itself. The Preventive Detention Act, after repeal, reincarnated itself in the Maintenance of Internal Security Act. Within a few years of its repeal, a much harsher version was put on the statute book in the name of TADA. The hue and cry against that Act led to its demise, but it rose from its ashes as POTA. Likewise, one can safely wager that, within a short time, with the dawn of realisation of the imprudence of lowering the guard against terrorism, it will be resurrected under some other name.

A puzzling omission in the section of the CMP dealing with foreign policy is the absence of any reference to the UN and the importance of strengthening it by restoring its authority under the charter as the arbiter of international issues.

Considering that the only brake on the US brand of unilateralism running amok is the UN, the CMP could have given at least an indication of the concerted effort India proposes to take for reviving it from its present moribund condition.

Curbing evils of Indian

brand of democracy

The CMP is also singularly reticent on the measures to combat corruption in high places. There is just a cryptic sentence that "The Lok Pal Bill will be passed into law", which does not amount to any sort of reassurance whatsoever, if one remembers that successive governments and Lok Sabhas during the last 40 years have been going through the motions of introducing the Bill only to let it languish and lapse. People have become so cynical about it that they cannot bring themselves to believe that its fate will be any better under this Government.

Similarly, there is not a word about vesting in the Central Vigilance Commission and the Central Bureau of Investigation powers and authority that would enable them to function totally independent of the government. Nor has the tragedy of Satyen Dubey stirred the UPA sufficiently to include in the CMP a vow to enact a law affording protection to whistle blowers.

While the UPA Government promises to take a "leadership role" to drastically cut delays in the disposal of cases in courts, and to give a "fresh momentum" to judicial reforms, the urgent need to set up a National Judicial Commission on the model that had already been debated and finalised has escaped its notice.

It is only through the establishment of such a Commission will it be possible to rid the system of appointment of judges of its vagaries and enforce some degree of accountability and respect for norms of conduct on the part of the judiciary at all levels. Finally, the CMP's only reference to electoral reforms is by way of a pronouncement to "initiate steps to introduce State funding of elections at the earliest". If this is carried through regardless of the fuzziness about how early is early, it will be a landmark in India's history in its own right. But this is not enough.

The UPA Government should also enact a law giving statutory backing to the model code of conduct, barring persons charge-sheeted by Courts for heinous offences from contesting elections, expelling legislators indulging in unbecoming behaviour in legislative fora and obstructing proceedings and debarring them from standing for elections and making non-publication of their annual audited accounts by political parties punishable by de-recognition by the Election Commission. The UPA Government should also order the income-tax authorities to go into the sources of movable and immovable assets declared by candidates where they bear no relation to their ostensible means of livelihood.

(Concluded)