NEW DELHI: India’s federal finance minister Manmohan Singh Tuesday said India could attract investments from nonresident Indians (NRIs) only if there was industrial peace in the country.
“If we want more NRIs to invest in India we must ensure industrial peace and see that the era of strikes and lockouts is over,” Singh told the upper house of parliament (Rajya Sabha).
Answering questions from Ramsinh Rathwa during the question hour, Singh sought the cooperation of all sections of the house to and asked them to work collectively create such a confidence among the NRIs.
The finance minister said during his recent visit to Singapore a number of NRIs complained about the industrial situation in the country. He said government was committed to do whatever necessary to encourage inflow of foreign exchange from NRIS.
Other complaints he heard were about the functioning of Indian banks, the bureaucracy and the law and order situation.
We will deal with all these problems with firmness and determination,” he said.
M S Gunupadaswamy sought to know whether the nationalized banks had suffered because of the mushroom growth of non-banking sector and also entry of non-pro fissional elements into the banking system.
Referring to the suggestion that effort should be made to weed out inefficient employees from banks, Singh said the question had to be dealt with trade unions leaders who were also worried about efficiency of banks.
Article extracted from this publication >> December 6, 1991
