Left firm on Plan advisers

The crisis over the inclusion of experts from the World Bank and other multilateral agencies into the consultative groups, being set up to review the 10th Five-Year Plan, deepened today, with both the Planning Commission and the Left parties reiterating their respective stands.

Before leaving for the US along with Prime Minster, Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia said he would discuss the issue with Manmohan Singh on the trip abroad.

But CPI(M) politburo member Prakash Karat today in a letter to Ahluwalia, said there was a "widespread" feeling that since 1991, agencies like the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank had had an "undue" influence on policy making in the country.

"The impact of policies conditioned by these agencies (the IMF and the World Bank) have had harmful effects on our economy and society," Karat said.

The other Left parties ""the CPI and the RSP"" which are extending crucial outside support to the UPA government, have already written to Ahluwalia against inclusion of foreign experts in the planning process. The Left parties, which have over 60 representatives in Parliament, are likely to take up the issue at the next meeting of UPA government-Left coordination committee.

The meeting will be held after the Prime Minister, who is the chairman of the Planning Commission, comes back from his tour abroad.

He also said the support of the Left parties to the UPA government was not unconditional and they would continue to put pressure on the Centre to reverse its "'anti-people stance" like increasing the limit of foreign direct investment in telecom and insurance.

"We have to exert pressure in and outside Parliament to force the UPA government to implement the common minimum programme," Karat said.

He said though there was little difference between the Congress and the BJP  on the FDI issue, they supported the Congress to enable it form a government at the Centre and the BJP from coming to power.