Assocham has decided to discontinue its arrangement with Ficci on Joint Business Councils (JBC)and may join hands with Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) on this issue.
Assocham and FICCI have strained their relationship with each other over the roles played by them in the JBCs. This has happened when there are just 11 months left for India becoming truly liberalised as all quantitative restrictions on imports will be lifted by April 1, 2001.
Assocham president Shekhar Bajaj said the chamber has decided to snap ties with Ficci over JBCs because its members `were not benefitting from the partnership', while Ficci secretary-general Amit Mitra expressed surprise at Assocham's move.
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"We are open to everything and will do what is best for our members. At the moment we have not given thought to tying up with CII," Bajaj told Business Standard.
Expressing surprise at Assocham's unilateral decision, Mitra said: "Ficci is surprised by Assocham's move as in the third week of April we had received a congratulatory letter and an encouragement note from our Assocham-nominated chairman of one of the JBCs. In November, Assocham had written a letter giving credit to the secretrary incharge of that country for the excellent work done by Ficci."
However, Bajaj said that in a joint venture (which Assocham had with Ficci on JBCs) `benefits must accrue to both'. that wasn't happening, he said.
Sources in both the chambers, meanwhile, said the fallout had to happen because of Ficci's `big brother' stance.
Bajaj categorically said that Ficci did not respond to a letter written by Assocham a month back, wherein Assocham had expressed its grudge on not benefitting out of the JBCs and its desire to breakaway if that was the way things were to function.
"This clearly means that they are not interested," Bajaj said.
However, Mitra refuted Baja's charges and said Ficci had replied to Assocham's letter.
Meanwhile, Assocham is now willing to go alone on the JBCs, but Bajaj did not rule out a possible marriage with the other rival -- the Confederation of Indian Industry.
However, sources tell us that Assocham had less than five JBC members. Assocham was also not able to fill up nominations of its own members on its JBCs.
The more important JBCs -- such as those with USA, Japan, Italy and Spain -- were with Ficci in any case.
Mitra said as far as Ficci is concerned, its business as usual and the JBCs would not be affected in any way. "We'll appoint Ficci members to posts that would be vacated with the withdrawal of Assocham members," Mitra added.
The Ficci-Assocham partnership on the Joint Business Council is over 20 years old. According to Bajaj, JBC is a separate entity which is housed in the Ficci secretariate.
Even as secreterial services were being provided by Ficci, costs are learnt to have been shared under the agreement.