A strong and unambiguous signal that the new government would forge ahead with reform, especially in fuel pricing, law, education, roads and environment, several of these issues the four Left parties had stalled in the previous government as the price for support in Parliament.
This was evident from the statements of several ministers, barely 12 hours old in their portfolios, who took charge today.
One of the most significant statements today came from Petroleum Minister Murli Deora, a second-timer in the ministry, who said the deregulation of oil and gas prices would be put up to the Cabinet in six weeks.
The politically sensitive move could see cooking and auto fuel prices rise as a result, but will help government-owned oil marketing companies (OMCs) reduce their losses on sales. The Left had criticised every oil price rise by the government in the last regime and had opposed deregulation.
Meanwhile, Commerce Minister Anand Sharma, newly promoted from a junior ministership in external affairs in the last government, said there would be no roll-back of Press Notes 2, 3 and 4, foreign direct investment (FDI) guidelines issued in February that significantly relax the rules and provide leeway for companies to skirt FDI limits in a host of sectors.
Businessmen were expecting a roll-back because of strong objections to the Press Notes from the Reserve Banks and sections of his ministry. Sharma, however, told reporters after assuming charge at noon, “These press notes are well-considered decisions. I do not see any reason why a comprehensive review is required. Let’s see how they function.”
Striking a similar pro-business note, Jairam Ramesh, minister with independent charge of environment and forests, told Business Standard he had spoken to the prime minister who had asked him to work to “correct the impression that the environment ministry was a hurdle in economic growth”.
“The public perception of the ministry of environment and forests is that it’s a hurdle to economic growth. We need to have a more business-friendly and transparent regulatory system,” Ramesh told reporters after his meeting with Manmohan Singh.
Meanwhile, the new Human Resource Development (HRD) Minister Kapil Sibal was clear that though none of the work of his predecessor Arjun Singh, who was dropped from the Cabinet, would be rolled back, the ministry would re-introduce a Bill to open India's higher education sector to foreign entities and regulate their operations.
Accordingly, the Foreign Educational Institutions (Regulation of Entry and Operations, Maintenance of Quality and Prevention of Commercialisation) Bill will be taken forward, Sibal said. The Bill had received Cabinet approval in February 2007 and was placed on the table of Lok Sabha for passing but was withdrawn inexplicably the same day.
The Bill seeks to regulate the entry, operation and maintenance of foreign education providers and was strongly opposed by the Left parties for the open door policy it would offer in higher education. Arjun Singh had said he was not in favour of opening up higher education to foreign universities without regulation.
Minister for Roads Transport and Highways Kamal Nath, commerce minister in the previous government, was also bullish on removing controls and said the public-private-partnership model needed to be reviewed to ensure that it attracted more bidders and investors.
"The old regulatory framework" on the transportation sector would be modernised to make the sector more "practical", Nath said. The elimination of the multiple permits system that makes it expensive to transport goods from one corner of the country to another, has been a long-standing demand of transporters.
Steel Minister Virbhadra Singh said his first priority would be to create an "empowered mechanism" to expedite investment proposals in the steel sector. A large number of foreign investment proposals were awaiting clearance, Singh said, adding "222 memoranda of understanding amounting to Rs 11 lakh crore have been signed between various investors and state governments. These need to be cleared."
That the government was no longer under pressure from allies was also clear from the statement of Shipping Minister G K Vasan who said the government would go ahead with the Sethusamudram project as there was no place for politics in infrastructure-creation.
Some ministers interpreted the political mandate of the government along the aam aadmi
(common man) theme.
Union Minister for Urban Development S Jaipal Reddy said he would ask the prime minister to provide more concessions on home loans up to Rs 30 lakh to boost demand in housing and construction.
New Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad said the implementation of the UPA government's flagship National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) in "letter and spirit", getting Cabinet approval for the National Urban Health Mission and putting on fast-track the construction of six All India Institutes of Medical Sciences would be his priorities.
An institutional mechanism to deal with attacks on Indian students abroad and a project to help jobless workers returning from the Gulf countries constitute the agenda of Minister of Overseas Affairs Vayalar Ravi, who said he would also work on agreements on social security and labour between Denmark, Luxembourg and the Netherlands and Gulf countries like Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.
Labour Minister M Mallikarjun Kharge said social security for construction labour would be the government’s first priority. "We will look into the problem of job losses arising out of recession," Kharge said in the context of the economic downturn. He did not, however, comment on industry's long-standing demand for easier hiring and firing laws.
