End 'double talk' on economic reform - Jaitley

By Our Special Correspondent

CHENNAI, SEPT. 27. The Union Minister of Law, Justice and Company Affairs, Mr. Arun Jaitley, today appealed to all political parties to end their ``double talk'' with respect to economic reform in the interest of ensuring faster economic growth.

He also appealed to the Press not to ``add to the atmosphere of cynicism'' about the economy but to bring about ``conciliation'' between its news content and the values preached by the editorials, taking a ``lesson'' from the behaviour of American TV channels in the wake of the terrorist attacks.

Inaugurating Logistics 2001, the third edition of the biennial four-day international exhibition and two-day conference on transportation and supply chain management, organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) here, Mr. Jaitley said the logistics sector, including ports, were among the areas in which substantial progress had been made in economic reform in the last decade, resulting in flow of private investment, elimination of shortages, improvement in efficiency and lowering of costs.

However, reform in many areas, especially labour law, power sector and public sector disinvestment, faced hurdles because political parties adopted double standards in respect of reform to suit their short-term interests. With India having achieved ``genuine federalism'', most parties were in power either on their own or as a part of a coalition, in one State or another or at the Centre. However, the parties tended to support reform where they were in power, while opposing the same reforms in legislatures where they occupied the opposition benches.

Opposition to reforms as a political strategy to take advantage of the likely impact of harsh measures like collection of user charges for services was ``irresponsible behaviour''. It posed the danger of taking the country back to the era of shortages and low economic growth that prevailed before the reform process began in the 1990s, Mr. Jaitley said.

Deploring talk about ``recession'' when economic growth was taking place, even if at less-than-targeted rates, the minister said such ``cynicism'' also posed a threat to the nation's progress and diverted attention from its urgent tasks. The Indian press did not play a commendable role, going by the fact that ``even cub reporters had assumed the role of specialists in valuation of public sector assets'' (in the case of Balco and Air India) and came out with allegations which were totally false.

Citing the American media, which, in the wake of the terrorist attack, did not talk about body count or about the fact that sniffer dogs had been incapacitated, Mr Jaitley said the U.S. showed how a nation could rise to the occasion when confronted with a serious crisis and concentrate on the immediate task of recovery and restoration of normalcy.

Mr. S. Mahalingam, Chairman, CII-Southern Region, said the CII proposed to hold an ``Education Summit'' in December this year and undertake an adult literacy campaign in view of the importance of ``educational infrastructure'' for economic growth.

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Section  : Business
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