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US curbs will boost indigenous research, says Mulayam Singh

Defence Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav has sought to belittle the unilateral United States action in slapping export restrictions on some Indian companies for their alleged involvement in the country's missile and nuclear programme and said it may prove to be a ''blessing in disguise.''

''Far from allowing the trade restrictions to become a setback, they will be converted into an opportunity for promoting self-reliance and quality, and the existing linkages with national science and technology resource are being strengthened for the purpose,'' Yadav said.

In what is perhaps the first official reaction to the raging controversy, Yadav emphatically said: ''It will give a boost to the nation's self-reliance efforts and the people had full faith in the scientific community of the country that it will rise to the occasion and deliver the goods.''

The defence minister reminded that not too long ago the US had refused to give supercomputers to India and then the same had been developed by the country with indigenous technology and knowhow.

''It will be a replay of the same experience even now and the country would emerge with flying colours without any setback to ongoing programmes and projects,'' Yadav stressed.

So far, four Indian entities have been named for export restrictions by the US commerce department. The first to be targetted was the public sector giant Bharat Electronics Limited. The other three to follow were the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre in Trombay, the Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research in Kalpakkam, and the Indian Rare Earths Limited.

Reports have it that more Indian firms are likely to be named by Washington as part of the US administration's enhanced proliferation control initiative. More than a hundred other Indian firms are understood to be on the nuclear watch list of the US.

Without naming any specific country, an undersecretary in the US commerce department recently told the annual US export conference that export curbs would be slapped on more foreign firms for ''arms proliferation.''

Official sources here echoed similar sentiments and said that as a matter of policy, all such developments were taken into account while launching any programme or project.

The sources substantiated their point by citing the imposition of the Missile Technology Control Regime in 1987. ''MTCR restrictions were anticipated even at the time of the sanctioning of the integrated guided missile development programme in 1983 and steps taken then itself to offset the effects."

The sources pointed out that following the imposition of the MTCR in 1987, multiple tasks teams had started developing and fabricating critical components and required facilities were set up where essential.

''On the whole, the challenge of the MTCR had provided a good opportunity for promoting self-reliance and quality,'' sources said.

So far the US has named 13 entities worldwide as part of ''tangible manifestation'' of the Clinton administration's resolve to give more teeth to its professed tough non-proliferation policy. The 13 centres named so far, including the four in India, are from China, Russia, Pakistan and Israel and would be subject to dual-technology export curbs to check proliferation of mass destruction weapons knowhow.

The export curbs will be in the form of requiring individual licence review for all items sold to the named entities. The US exporters will need to apply for export licences, even if the products they want to ship are not controlled.

BEL alone imports about $ 25 million worth of components from the US. Earlier, the company had to give an end-user certificate on some items. Now it will have to give the certificate on all items. And end-user certificate given by an importer to the exporters specifies what the components would be used for. Besides other things it would mean process delays.

According to reports, a private US group monitoring proliferation activities worldwide, which supplies information to the US government, is understood to have identified 127 Indian companies for alleged involvement in the nuclear and missile programmes.

Reports attributed to this group said 31 of these companies and institutions were suspected to be connected to the nuclear programme, while 96 entities were reportedly connected to the integrated guided missile development programme.

According to the ''watchlist'' prepared by this group, 174 Chinese companies and 46 Pakistani companies had also been identified as indulging in proliferation activities. The criteria was that any company or institution involved in research, development or production of a part used in a missile or unsafeguarded nuclear reactor was considered prime for citation.

The US has justified the action on the ground that no one country had been singled out. The action had been taken against five countries simultaneously.

The US commerce department has said it is necessary to provide more specific guidance to exporters on military proliferation end-users. In the past it had achieved notable success with those who assisted Iraq's bomb-making efforts and Libya's attempts to evade UN sanctions.

The working community in India, led by the Bharat Electronics Shramik Trade Union, is up in arms against the US action and have described it as yet another ''unfortunate'' instance of Washington sending ''wrong signals'' to the free and democratic world.

"If the US could accord most-favoured nation status to China in spite of reports that Beijing had transferred missile and nuclear technology to Islamabad, which was supporting terrorism and other subversive activities, then India, which has time and again made its peaceful intentions clear to the world, definitely deserves better treatment,'' the union has said in a statement following the imposition of restrictions.

Earlier stories:
US slaps curbs on 3 Indian institutions
India protests against US exports curbs on BEL
Indian electronics firm faces US export sanctions

UNI