As a Congress MP, former Environment and Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh has been one of the most vocal critics of the Narendra Modi government in Rajya Sabha. Ramesh, termed a ‘No-Go” Minister by industry for his green crusade, gives his take on two years of the NDA government to BusinessLine in an interview. Edited excerpts:
What’s your view on the NDA government’s performance in these two years?
The biggest achievement is that the Prime Minister (Narendra Modi) has done political packaging and political messaging of programmes that were being run administratively. The Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan became Swachh Bharat Abhiyan. The mission on financial inclusion became Jan Dhan Yojana. The national programme for connecting panchayats became Digital India. So, the Prime Minister has been skilful in branding, packaging and communicating.
His greatest achievement is that he has taken the ongoing programmes and given them a political direction. I credit him for that. In spite of my best efforts, I couldn’t get Dr Manmohan Singh (former PM) to champion toilets.
What about the Centre flagging its achievements in roads, railways and power?
There has certainly been a lot of energetic talk as far as power, roads and railways are concerned….But, a lot of cherry-picking is going on. If you actually do an apple to apple comparison and an orange to orange comparison, the claims do not stand the test of scrutiny. To give you one example, we now have the lowest plant load factor (PLF) in the past 10-12 years as far as the electricity sector is concerned. Low PLF means there is no electricity demand, and if there is no electricity demand in a country like India, it means the economy has come to a halt.
So, the time for attributing all their (NDA government) weaknesses to (UPA) inheritance is over.
Isn’t Jan Dhan a big achievement?
There is lot of jan but not dhan. It is important to have dhan. What is the point of opening an account if people are not in a position to operate an account? Do you know, 40 per cent of Jan Dhan accounts are second accounts? Under MGNREGA, we opened 10 crore bank and post office accounts, and all wages were going into it.
But, you will agree that economic growth is doing well
For me, what is most worrisome is that for the first time India’s GDP numbers have been called into serious question. I am not saying that Modi fiddled with GDP numbers. But, something has happened about which the government is not serious. They have changed the method of calculation. But, they are living in a fool’s paradise, because the reworking of GDP is putting them in good light, and showing that India is growing at 7.5 per cent. But, we all know that the more realistic growth rate is probably around 6 per cent. Though 6 per cent growth nothing to be sneezed at, exports have fallen for about 15 months, over 50 per cent of FDI that has come, has gone into services, and out of that, 50 per cent has gone into the electronic, e-commerce sector…
What about foreign direct investment (FDI)?
I am surprised the BJP government is giving so much importance to FDI. In fact, BJP opposed the 1991 reforms because they felt it was pro-FDI. Today, the single biggest achievement being touted for this government is $35 billion FDI in 2015. But, ultimately, it’s not FDI but DI (domestic investment) that counts.
They have redone the Mauritius treaty, which I think is good. We started it in 2004. Remember, the Indo-Mauritius treaty was done by Narasimha Rao (former PM) because there were a lot of Telugus in Mauritius and he wanted strategic presence of India there.
What is your view on the NDA government’s Budgets?
They have realised that the neglect of the rural sector has cost them very dearly. So, there has been an effort in this Budget to demonstrate greater commitment to rural development and infrastructure.
Do you agree that corruption has been contained in these two years?
Well, we have raised one of the biggest corruption issues in recent times – the GSPC-KG Basin scam. ₹ 20000 of bank funds were given to GSPC when its reserves were cut from 20 trillion cubic feet to just one trillion cubic feet. In 2005, the Chief Minister of Gujarat, Narendra Modi, announced that it was India’s richest gas reserve. Today, GSPC is proved to be a dud, and they want ONGC to take over 50 per cent of its stake. If you can go after (Vijay) Mallya, who owes the banks ₹9,000 crore, why not after GSPC, which owes the banks ₹20,000 crore?