Govt Turns To Media To Drum Up Awareness On Reforms

With the bulk of reform programmes stuck up for want of support in Parliament, the government has decided to vigorously tap the media to drum up awareness regarding the benefits of the past decade of reforms and make other political parties come round on the issue.

The Prime Minister's Office (PMO) has sought the opinion of different ministries on the possible set of reform measures that can be highlighted in the media. The need to publicise the achievements of the past few years has assumed importance as the government feels that a host of critical measures, including labour, power and financial sector reforms, are stalled in Parliament because of the unrelenting Opposition.

The government's spin doctors have come round to the idea that the only way to get the Opposition's support on the held-up legislations is to awaken it to the benefits of reforms. In several presentations, independent consultants and teams of multilateral agencies have told the government that to make the international community believe in the commitment of the present coalition to push the reforms process ahead, it will have to get the concerned proposals passed in Parliament.

In the past couple of months, the Centre has been embarrassed by the rejection of the Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management Bill by the standing committee on finance in Parliament, the stalling of labour reforms and the lack of enthusiasm among states to reform their power sector. It also faced difficulty in getting the Electricity Bill passed by Parliament which would have opened up doors for direct sale of power to bulk consumers.

The PMO has already held consultations with other ministries on the issue. The tentative programme of publicity includes preparing spots and other advertisements highlighting the achievements of the past decade. Buying prime time slots on television and radio channels for the purpose is also planned. To ensure that this does not remain confined to a limited audience, slots could be bought on private television channels also in addition to Doordarshan.

The spin doctors feel that beyond a few circles in the metros, the information regarding the benefits of reforms has not percolated down the public. They feel this is the right time to carry home the message riding on the spate of developments on the telecom front and even the reduction in the prices of petrol and diesel.