Cong for new model of mixed economy

The Congress said it was proud of the economic reforms legacy of former Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao, but added the party would never depart from the policy of Nehruvian Socialism, and promised a new view of the instruments of a mixed economy in a vision document to be finalised shortly.

Reacting to observations of Rajiv Shukla, a Congress MP, in a newspaper article that Rao was unhappy at the way the party had jettisoned his government's legacy of economic reforms, the party was quick to contradict this perception.

Spokesmen Salman Khurshid and Jairam Ramesh said: "Economic policies have not been reversed, they have been amplified. Rao used the middle path as the way to describe the economy; all that has been done is to fashion new instruments in tune with changing times".

When it was pointed out that the mixed economy had not just been referred to by Rao but also Congress chief Sonia Gandhi in her address to the CII a year ago, they said the mix between the private and the public sector had to change in keeping with the time.

"There was no foreign investment during Nehru's time. But now we have to factor that in," Ramesh said.

Khurshid insisted that the Congress had not and would never depart from socialism. But he also said it was the Bharatiya Janata Party that had undermined the Rao government's legacy of economic reform.

Ramesh also cited a report of the Food and Agriculture Organisation which said hunger in India had grown after the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government had come to power.

He quoted a report on the State of Food Insecurity in the World 2003 (FAO) that said: "After seeing a decline of 20 million in the number of undernourished people between 1990-92 and 1996-97, the number of hungry people in India increased by 19 million over the following four years.

Ramesh said the FAO report only confirmed what the Congress had been saying all alone. He referred to the 10 or so letters written by Congress Chief Ministers, asking the government to launch a nation-wide rural employment guarantees scheme using surplus foodgrain stock, because of low offttake in ration shops owing to the sharp increase in PDS prices of rice and wheat.