The Hindu : Not by sops alone

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Apr 02, 2002

Opinion

Opinion - Letters to the Editor

Not by sops alone

Sir, — The Finance Minister, Yashwant Sinha, in his Budget speech, doled out tax sops for MNCs to attract more investment into the country. We are also witness to a series of measures taken in this direction. But the moot point is — Can India benefit from the investments due to FDI flows? Or is there anything to be done before the Government can go full steam in getting its share of the world's FDI flows? Our country's track record in reaping the benefits from FDI raises only worried brows.

The Enron-Maharashtra Electricity Board (MEB) deal is a case in point. Lack of transparency in approvals, bumpy infrastructure scene, to name a few, do little to assuage our concerns. With a huge attractive market and a large pool of skilled labour, topped-up with Government-given sops, India will no doubt laugh its way to garnering a large chunk of the world's FDI pie. But it makes more sense to put the house in order before these baits can catch our prey! Merely dishing out sops will not take us very far.

Ram Prasad Krishnamurthy,
Bangalore

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