NEW DELHI: MAJOR opposition parties which have threatened to-vote against the government in the coming session of Parliament Want the budget for 1992.93 10 shed “excessive” reliance on aid from international financial institutions stiffer taxes on affluent sections cutting down non-plan expenditures and measures to bring down prices immediately reports PTI.
While the BJP favored liberalization of the economy and freeing it from the shackles of bureaucratic controls it will oppose any move that leads to a “sell-out of the Country’s economic independence” says Mr. Krishan Lal Sharma party vice president.
The former finance minister Prof Madhu Dandavate suggests invoking Article 292 of the Constitution to put a ceiling on external and internal borrowings and pursuing the harder option of internal resource mobilization through restructuring taxes on affluent section and unearthing of black market money.
Echoing similar sentiments spokesmen of Left parties also want deterrent anti-tax-evasion measures to bring out vast sums of black market money.
The opposition leaders were giving their opinion on how the coming budget should be in the context of the serious economic crisis facing the nation.
BJP PLAN: the BJP leader says his party will press for restoring fertilizer subsidy raising the income tax exemption limit and congress manifesto including the promise to roll back prices.
Mr. Sharma says his party will most oppose the budget for the sake of opposing but it will also fight any economics policy that is contrary to the BIPS election manifesto.
It’s says the BJP will oppose “tooth and nail”, any effort to open the floodgates to multinationals and the government succumbing to “pressure and dictates of IMF and World Bank”. Instead the party will link more incentives for NRIs to invest in the country BJP wants foreign investment limited to hi-tech areas like onshore and offshore oil exploration fee ports and in implementation of projects like linking of rive.
Mr. Sharma favors a drastic cut i expenditures to keep the budget deficit under control but however does not accept the government decision to effect “a steep in ease” in the administered price of various items including the issue price of essential commodities and petroleum products.
Calling for a “fresh perspective” Prof. Dandavate says the present economic scenario is full of fiscal imbalances like a predacious balance of payments position large deficit rising inflation and ever growing external debts.
The prevailing economic situation he says is the cumulative impact of a wrong direction economy for over a decade and a new package of structural adjustments including devaluation and revised industrial policy and the strategy of the 1991-92 budgets.
Prof. Dandavate says the precarious balance of payments position cannot be improved by sole reliance on IMF and World Bank. The new budge the says will have to note that the main causes of deterioration are the imbalance between imports and exports ever growing external debits non utilization of foreign assistance linked with projects and increasing burden on foreign exchange reserves due to import intensive industrialization.
Prof. Dandavate is of the opinion that the new budget will have to avoid recurrence of devaluation as the 22 per cent devaluation already has increased the annual import bill especially on oil imports from 2500.croretoRs 3000 crore. This will result in a rise in prices of these products and subsequent rise in inflation by 4 percent hitting the common man he feels.
He says the new industrial policy has promised unfettered freedom to multinationals to enter any area with the result they will mutilate the small sale sector in an uneven competition leading to large scale unemployment.
The former finance minister says entry of MNCs will mean exit of labor and wants this policy to be corrected.
Prof. Dandavate says the country’s public sector has become bureaucratic state sector. It must be streamlined through professionalized management public account accountability and incentives to augment its efficiency and generation of surpluses to be harnessed for development and welfare activities.
Prof Dandavate says the government must refuse to surrender to GATT on the Dunkel Proposals as it will mean surrendering India’s economic sovereignty and adversely affecting self-reliance decentralized industries intellectual property rights agricultural price support policy and working of the public distribution system.
The CPM describes the new economic policies as surrender to the dictates of the IMF and World Bank and the people are suffering from the fruits of these policies seeing a rise in prices of essential commodities. “The impending exit policies were threatening closure of public sector units. The interests of peasants and consumers were being imperiled by the cut in subsidies due to government policies the 14th Congress of the party said in its economic resolution
Article extracted from this publication >> February 21, 1992
