FM seeks all-party support to resolve issues facing economy

Ahead of the last session of the current Parliament and planning to clear as many key reform bills as possible, Finance Minister P Chidambaram today sought cooperation from all political parties and urged them to adopt a bi-partisan approach to resolve the challenges facing the economy.
The last session of the current Lok Sahba begins on February 5 and the Finance Minister will present a vote-on-account on the 17th of the month, ahead of the general elections.
Though no full session is being held, he is planning to introduce several reform bills like the SEBI Amendment Bill in the two-week session as the past two sessions were near washout.

"It is my sincere hope that as we enter a period of bitter political rivalry (ahead of the hustings), we will remember that there must be a bi-partisan approach to the challenges the economy faces and to the steps that are to be taken to stabilise the economy," Chidambaram said at the Golden Jubilee celebrations of UTI here this evening.
Citing the restructuring of UTI as one of the best examples of such a bipartisan approach, Chidambaram said, "While the first tentative steps (towards UTI recast) were taken by Yashwant Sinha, the then finance minister, the restructuring was midwifed by Jaswant Singh, the finance minister at that time. And when I took over as finance minister, I took it forward and completed the restructuring process."

"It is a good example of despite changes in the government, the main actors and political rivalry, there is a deeper bipartisan consensus when it comes to taking crucial decisions affecting the economy," he said.
About the implementation of FSLRC report, he said the non-legislative part of the recommendations should be implemented at the earliest.
"While it's not possible to initiate and complete the legislative action that is required within the term of this government, we will begin work and then we hope that the legislative actions will be completed in calendar 2014," Chidambaram said.