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Lok Sabha completes financial business

With the passing of the appropriation bills, vote-on-account and the finance bill, the Lok Sabha has completed the financial business relating to the first quarter of the financial year 1998-99.

Apart from the appropriation bills and vote-on-account (interim budget), the Lok Sabha also passed the finance bill to continue for the financial year 1998-99 the income tax rates prevalent at present, and an amendment to the Contingency Fund of India Act 1950.

With the passing of the appropriation and vote-on-account bills relating to the railways, the House completed the only legislative business listed for the first session of the 12^th Lok Sabha that was primarily convened to enable the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government to seek a vote of confidence.

When the Lok Sabha takes up the motion by Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee seeking confidence in his government, the Rajya Sabha will take up the financial business and return the appropriation bills relating to the Union and the railways.

The only other business to be conducted by both Houses will be adoption of motions thanking the President for his address to the joint sitting of Parliament. This will be taken up on March 30 and 31.

Speaking during the debate on the interim budget in the Lok Sabha, Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha said that policies would be formulated small investor and restore investor confidence as regards domestic and foreign investment.

Sinha said the government will not accord any privilege to foreign investors which is not available to domestic investors.

He said the intention of the government is to raise domestic savings from 26 per cent to 30 per cent in five years time. This will mean that domestic resources will play a much bigger role and would receive much more focus as compared to foreign capital.

Sinha said the government intends to set up a hassle-free regime for domestic and foreign investors. Procedures will be greatly simplified.

He said foreign investment was welcome in priority areas including infrastructure but would be discouraged in non-priority areas. It would be brought in areas which would benefit the country.

The finance ministry, Sinha said, will not protect anyone, howsoever high he may be, involved in any scam. The government was not interested in protecting any guilty person and the law will take its own course. He said if a former prime minister could be chargesheeted, it only showed the evolution of our democracy.

He said swadeshi will be the cornerstone of this government which he defined as defending, protecting, and safeguarding national interests. He said over the last seven years, foreign investment has become the sum total of economic discussion. The importance given to it was greatly overstressed. At best of times, it has played only a marginal role and was less than two per cent of total investment.

He pointed out that as per the latest investment figures, foreign investment amounted to a little over one per cent of total investment. It was strange, therefore, how it had become the basis of all discussions on the economic policy, whether in the media or in Parliament, he added. The finance minister said foreign investment will be welcome "only in areas which are for our own good." He said relying too much on foreign investment would create wide disparities that would lead to greater social tension and break the societal fabric. "The poor would not tolerate any further inequality," he warned.

He said an economic policy which did not take into consideration the poor and the rural economy was not worth the paper it was written upon.

Sinha, however, said the government will be completely transparent in dealing with foreign companies. It will clearly define what are priority and non-priority areas.

Assuring that the procedures will be simplified, Sinha said eight fast-track power projects had not been cleared for several years. The proposals have hardly moved. He wondered what sort of fast track it was. It was necessary to get rid of this mindset.

Sinha said the small investor has been cheated of his money time and again. "We will build a system in the government so that no one will be able to cheat the small investor," he said.

The finance minister said the budget estimates presented by him was not his own creation and he was only carrying forward a legacy of the previous government. It did not reflect the policies of his government. He would come forward with the policies in the regular budget and a review of the Ninth Plan.

He said there was no rancour in his budget speech on March 25 and that he said only stated the facts. He said that he had stated that industry was doing poorly as also exports. "If I had only concealed these facts," he said, "I would not have been honest."

It was not in his interest to apportion blame to anybody and put anyone on the defensive. He wished that former finance minister P Chidambaram had intervened in the debate and replied to some of the points raised.

Sinha said the national agenda of governance believes in consensus. He said it was necessary to have the same consensus in economic policy as in defence and foreign affairs. Pleading for economic consensus, he said the economy was an important tool for the social well being and it should not be left to the vagaries of the situation. He said we have come to a situation where we are very close to a consensus.

During the last 50 years there has been substantial economic progress. It was this strength which allowed the country to withstand the vagaries of the kind the East Asian economies had undergone recently. He said India had been criticised for not following the East Asian or the East European model. But he pointed out that there was no time-tested model and the East Asian economies collapsed. He insisted that the only model which suits the country is the uniquely Indian model. "There is no other model India can follow," he said, "The Indian model has evolved on the basis of the concepts and precepts of leaders of all political parties."

Assuring that domestic industry will in no way be discriminated against foreign investment, Sinha said the demand for a level playing field has not come from BJP or from any other political party but from domestic industry itself.

R S Rao of the Congress said Sinha statement India did not go the East Asian way due to its inherent strengths was a tribute to the economy built by the Congress.

During the passing of the bills, Basudeo Acharya (CPI-M) made a strong plea for declaring the city of Calcutta as a '1A' city on the lines of Delhi and Bombay.

He said that West Bengal assembly had also passed a resolution to that effect.

He said not classifying Calcutta as a 1A city meant that the central government employees in Calcutta got only fifty per cent of the house rent allowance.

Sinha said that he had made note of the points made and would consider them.

G M Banatwala (Muslim League) moved a resolution -- which he later withdrew -- to the effect that the government should not resort to ordinances for legislative business.

Sinha assured him that it was because the 11^th Lok Sabha had been dissolved and the corpus was only Rs 500 million that it had become necessary to bring forward the ordinances.

UNI