Will he calm Delhi?

BACKSTAGE

For arguably the fifth time in his life, Tejinder Khanna is being appointed to a crucial post at a crucial time. The first was in 1961 when he joined the IAS as an officer in the Punjab cadre. He became commerce secretary at a time when India was implementing economic reforms seriously for the first time in history""the commerce minister was P Chidambaram. The United Front government appointed him Lieutenant Governor (LG) of Delhi. He brought stability to the Ranbaxy empire when Dr Parvinder Singh who was ravaged by cancer asked him to take over as chairman of the company.

And now once again, Khanna has stepped in when Delhi""and the Congress"" need a person at the helm who understands the real estate conundrum that the capital is facing, on the eve of the assembly elections.

If Khanna has anyone to thank for his present appointment, it is the impending municipal polls in the city and the mess created by the sealing operations. The municipal polls, scheduled in April, have brought home sharply to the Congress the need to retrieve political ground lost by sealing. Khanna's solution to many of Delhi's problems were contained in a report he was asked to write by Ajay Maken, minister of state for urban development. The report suggested that all businesses and construction before December 31, 2005 be regularised; a Real Estate Regulatory Commission be set up with digitised records of land transactions to keep a better track of unauthorised construction; and a mixed land use pattern for Delhi, to incorporate industrial and commercial activity in residential areas. As this was a sensible, middle-of-the-road solution that the government would not have found traumatic to implement, it is not surprising that Khanna should be offered his old job when a vacancy arose especially as he is considered a co-author of the Delhi Master Plan 2021.

Khanna derives his expertise on Delhi from his earlier stint""he was last the LG of Delhi during the United Front government's tenure for a short while, before being replaced by Vijai Kapoor when the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government came to power. His appointment is being considered a signal, just before the municipal polls that the Congress is serious about providing relief to Delhi traders. As LG, Khanna will be Chairman, DDA, hence responsible for the implementation of the Master Plan.

The government expects that Khanna will respond to the demands on him as he has done in the past""understanding the imperatives of governance without being overtly political. As Director General Foreign Trade (DGFT) and later commerce secretary, Khanna managed to straddle two eras""the pre-reform one dominated by quotas and government-determined targets for exporters; and the beginning of reforms and the global integration of the Indian economy that initially was defined by a significant reduction in paperwork. Later, working on WTO issues, Khanna and Chidambaram steered an approach that focused on providing Indian exporters trade access while conceding as little as possible. It was a time of radical moves, but also a time that needed caution. Khanna reflected this when he spoke at a conference in Singapore in 1996 and said: "Even where the role of the state-owned enterprises has got diminished, their place is being taken by national manufacturing and business entities rather than by transnational corporations.

Maintaining a favourable dispensation for the growth of national business undertakings would ensure that job creation, technology absorption and developmental capability and production of goods and services in accordance with the needs""physical, psychological and cultural""of the people can take place in a manner which will promote a broadly self-reliant and self-sustaining pattern of economic development."

As Ranbaxy Chairman""because of his and his family's association with the Radhasoami Satsang Beas""Khanna brought some calm to the troubled group. The Congress must fervently hope that he brings the same touch to bear in Delhi.