President Pratibha Patil in her first address to the joint session of the new Parliament on Thursday has reiterated all the major points of the broad programme of the second UPA government of prime minister Manmohan Singh. It includes steps to revive the economy reeling under the effects of the global meltdown, to take strong counter-terrorism measures and to push with zeal social reform measures like the women’s reservation bill which has been struck for more than a decade now as also increase to 50 per cent reservation for women in panchayat raj institutions.
The President’s address appears to contain no surprises and nor are there any controversial policy thrusts. The government is clearly continuing on the aam aadmi track, aiming at populist, welfare-oriented measures that promise good electoral returns. But a closer reading shows that Manmohan Singh also intends to pursue the economic reforms agenda with greater zeal than ever. For example, the president has said that disinvestment in public sector enterprises would be used to facilitate people to buy stakes in them. The logic seems unassailable that people should be direct shareholders in these public sector units. This would appear to be one way of reducing the government’s share in them and allowing for increase in private holdings of these PSUs.
Similarly, emphasis has been placed on the beneficial aspects of foreign direct investment. The President talked of the need to augment resources in the banking and insurance sectors in order to serve the needs of society better. This can be seen as an implied intention to allow foreign investment in these sectors, which was a bone of contention in the first term of the UPA government. There is also a surprising policy statement on subsidies. In her speech she said that to maintain fiscal responsibility, there is a need for a rethink on subsidies and that where they exist they should strictly reach the targeted segments.
Not all the promises made by the President or rather the government will be kept or are easy to fulfill. Bringing back unaccounted money parked in overseas accounts or issuing national identity cards for everyone are worthwhile projects but will require humungous effort. But the direction this government will take has been set. The steps the government takes in the next few months can be benchmarked against this stated agenda.
