Bjp Pledges To Reform Reforms

The Bharatiya Janata Party yesterday said it would reform the reforms process by substantially modifying it in favour of the domestic industry.

Foreign direct investment (FDI) will be channelled through Indian partners and the domestic industry given up to ten years to prepare for globalisation. Indian companies will get preference over foreign ones in spheres where both are permitted.

The party promises credit, tax breaks and insurance schemes to push the bhagidari (unincorporated) sector which contributes 40 per cent of our national income. The term bhagidari includes both small scale services from restaurants to plumbers, and professionals from doctors to musicians. The party draws much of its support from this sector.

 

The swadeshi-oriented economic agenda in the partys manifesto, which was released yesterday, emphasises an India First policy. Foreign insurance companies are to be kept out of insurance and only allowed minority holdings in areas like the oil and telecom sectors.

Yet, the party promises to sustain growth GDP at 8-9 per cent, industrial at 12 per cent and agricultural at 5 per cent a year. It promises to create 10 million jobs, promote artisan-based and rural industries, infrastructure, housing, construction, agriculture, wasteland development and forestry.

Every nation advocates free trade in all global forums, but, in practice, they compulsively resort to quotas, tariffs and anti-dumping measures to protect their national interests, says the manifesto while explaining the swadeshi approach. Giving examples of the US and Japan, which preach free trade but practice protectionism, the BJP says: India, too, must follow its own national agenda.

The BJP would encourage FDI in a non-predatory role in joint ventures rather than in 100 per cent subsidiaries and only in areas where the Indian industry is not doing well. Responding to the longstanding demand of the Indian industry, the party promises that takeovers by foreign companies would not be encouraged until the Indian economy gains global strength.

The BJP manifesto has debunked the Congress governments economic reforms as a surrender to the IMF, through which foreign companies flourished and the Indian ones floundered.

To correct this, the party proposes rapid, large-scale internal liberalisation with a calibrated globalisation. In effect: precedence to procedural reforms like rectification of corporate, tax and other commercial laws over policy reforms.

The imprint of the strong domestic lobby on the manifesto is evident in the promise of seven to ten years for substantial integration with the global economy.

In this, it has taken up where Atal Behari Vajpayee left off in a recent interview wherein he stated that three years should be given to the Indian industry to prepare for foreign competition.

A highlight of the manifesto is a national agenda for the un-incorporated sector