In his first and the only National Press Conference he held in New Delhi as prime minister, Manmohan Singh had announced that the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government would complete its five-year tenure. That was on September 4, 2004. Few took him seriously. The commonly held belief then was that either Dr Singh would quit mid-way or the UPA would fall apart bringing down the government prematurely. As the country heads for another general election, the sobering thought is that neither did Dr Singh quit mid-way, in disgust as some people had feared, nor did the government collapse before the end of its term.
Indeed, the Manmohan Singh government can look back at its new initiatives during its five-year tenure with some sense of satisfaction. The India-US civilian nuclear co-operation agreement may have remained on top of Dr Singh’s agenda for the last two years. He might also count it as one of his major achievements. Then, there are also those who will point to the national rural employment guarantee scheme as the government’s major contribution to strengthening its poverty alleviation programmes. Yes, the scheme was controversial. But even its worst critics will now concede that the scheme has resulted in creating jobs for the poor and the underprivileged.
Civil society is also pleased with the manner in which the Manmohan Singh government has beefed up the Right To Information Act and empowered the ordinary people with access to information that are usually kept under the wraps by ruling party politicians and civil servants. Even the new experiment, though short-lived, with the creation of the National Advisory Council, did bring about improvements in governance. It is true that the Council made a difference and remained relevant only as long as Congress President Sonia Gandhi was involved. But as long as it remained active, the Council served as a useful tool to improve the government’s functioning and delivery mechanism.
But the big change Dr Singh brought about through his personal intervention was in the area of public sector enterprises. He set up a Board for Restructuring Public Sector Enterprises (BRPSE) to advise the government on how to deal with the problem of ailing state-owned companies. His initial mistake though was to appoint Prahlad Basu as the chairman of BRPSE. Mr Basu ran into problems while dealing with bureaucrats and the minister concerned. While he sent several recommendations for restructuring public sector companies, the ministry and the Cabinet did not act on most of them.
Once Prahlad Basu quit BRPSE, Dr Singh lost no time in appointing his successor. Nitish Sengupta took charge of the Board and soon results started flowing. Of the 62 recommendations for restructuring sent to the government so far, the Board has managed to get the Cabinet’s clearance for 32 proposals for revival through injection of fresh funds or new partnership. Two cases of closure (Bharat Ophthalmic Glass and Bharat Yantra Nigam) have also been cleared by the government.
With the Board in place, public sector enterprises now have a new ally in their battle with the government for quick measures to remedy their problems. It is likely that the Board may cease to exist once the Manmohan Singh government completes its tenure and the new government may consider such an arrangement redundant. But the experiment for the last five years and its results may encourage its continuation even by the next government.
Manmohan Singh’s other major contribution was the setting up of the National Knowledge Commission. A six-member body was given the mandate to advise the government on ways to build excellence in the education system, meet the knowledge challenges of the 21st century and increase India’s competitive advantage in the fields of knowledge. It had a fixed tenure of three years. Its term has ended. But the government now has in its possession recommendations in as many as 25 specific areas. These are not merely recommendations. They provide detailed roadmaps for achieving excellence in different areas of knowledge. They will be a useful tool for any government that is formed after May.
Considering that only Rs 6.2 crore were spent on getting the National Knowledge Commission come out with such valuable reports in 36 months (nine reports in 2006, eleven in 2007 and five in 2008), this may well rank as one of the most innovative and economical of all the initiatives that the Manmohan Singh government launched in the last five years. They will look cost-effective too, once the new government cares to initiate quick action on the recommendations made by these 25 reports. Manmohan Singh may still like to believe that his biggest achievement was the India-US civilian nuclear co-operation agreement. But his initiatives to set up the Board for Restructuring Public Sector Enterprises and the National Knowledge Commission are no less laudable.
