Economic policy gets a few gentle nudges

VOICE FROM 10 JANPATH PART-II

Having given up the prime ministership of India in preference to an economist, Congress President Sonia Gandhi has nevertheless evinced keen interest in the management of the country's economy in the last two-and-a-half years.

Her interest has not been limited to "aam aadmi" issues like price rise, petroleum prices and the agrarian crisis. She has written letters to different ministers in the United Progressive Alliance regime giving her inputs on a host of issues.

On September 21 she wrote a letter each to Commerce Minister Kamal Nath, Small Scale Industries Minister Mahavir Prasad and Food Processing Minister Subodh Kant Sahay, exhorting them to lay more emphasis on the leather and footwear industry, small and medium industries, and the food and agro-processing industry, respectively.

The three got the same performance appraisal from her in identical letters: "I am aware that some progress has been made by your ministry in this sector. However, there is much more to be done if we have to show visible results...."

Last March Gandhi, then the National Advisory Council chairperson, wrote to Nath conveying the feeling that India was, perhaps, signing too many free trade agreements, "which made our own manufacturing sector more vulnerable".

The need is to ensure that a labour-intensive manufacturing industry is not hampered by trade liberalisation and a spate of free trade and other agreements. "The government may like to consider taking special care before the Early Harvest Programme is included in any future agreement...to ensure that the sensitive list of items in the existing agreements is not diluted or reduced any further through future negotiations," suggested Gandhi's letter.

Her clout, as perceived by the ministers in the Manmohan Singh government, is reflected in a letter written to her by Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar in September. He sought her intervention to ensure that co-operative banks were provided 2 per cent interest subvention by the Centre on farm credit at 7 per cent interest rate, stating that the government was "hesitant" to do it. The UPA regime announced this decision shortly afterwards.

There are numerous other instances when Sonia Gandhi has sought to intervene in affairs that are the exclusive preserve of the executive. Following a letter from a Congress member of parliament about alleged irregularities in the Bharat Aluminium Company Ltd (Balco) deal with Sterlite last September, her staff at 10, Janpath wrote to the finance minister's office seeking a status report.

Another letter from her staff at the NAC office to the finance minister this year related to the demand of Kashmiri migrants for a tax waiver. In a letter last August, Finance Minister P Chidambaram, however, wrote back to Gandhi politely explaining there was no provision under the Income Tax Act to waive tax dues of a class of persons.

(Concluding part tomorrow: Sonia Gandhi's veto powers)