Race Course Road

India Today
September 14, 1998

RACE COURSE ROAD
The Saboteurs

Vajpayee can't afford to be lenient with 'super' ministers

Prabhu Chawla

What Prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee proposes, one minister or the other invariably disposes. With cabinet colleagues like Ananth Kumar as loyalists, Vajpayee doesn't need any saboteurs in his Government. Last week, when Vajpayee was trying to boost the sagging spirit of corporate India by attempting to address its problems directly, Civil Aviation Minister Kumar delivered a body blow to the prime minister's credibility with administrative actions that were, at best, highly suspect. By putting on hold yet again, on the flimsiest of grounds, the proposal by the Tatas to start a domestic airlines Kumar virtually ensured that the Tatas withdrew from the project. They did, the next day. If anything, Kumar's fiat was a clear defiance of the prime minister's directive to his ministers to clear all pending and new projects within 60 days. But in the Vajpayee Government, ministers like Kumar have come to wield powers that are the envy of the prime minister himself. They even consider Vajpayee's non-interfering attitude the perfect opportunity to cock a snook, not just at the PMO but also at him.

The facts are thus: both Vajpayee and Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha were keen that the project be cleared. Ditto for Home Minister L.K. Advani, a stickler for rules, who was sympathetic towards the project. Industry Minister Sikander Bakht, an angry old reformer in a Swadeshi-plagued government, has been chasing the Civil Aviation Ministry for its mandatory recommendations for the past five months. But their combined might proved insufficient to stop the invisible power house supplying constant energy to Kumar and his cronies .

So brazen was Kumar in his attitude that he rubbished suggestions that his action could lead to an adverse impact on new investments and the inflow of foreign capital. Other apologists cited the aggressive opposition from MPs as one of reasons for further delaying the project. What was conveniently forgotten was that the same Government had brushed aside opposition from within the party and outside to clear many power and other projects. Only recently, the Finance Ministry cleared in a tearing hurry a power project promoted by an NRI which neither had full financial closures nor the nod from the concerned ministry. The ordinance on Prasar Bharati was promulgated even though more than a 100-odd MPs had petitioned the government against it.

The arrogance of successive civil aviation ministers in recent times owes much to the highly remunerative character of the seat they occupy. In 1995, the Tatas, with several others, were encouraged to venture into the aviation sector by the then prime minister, P.V. Narasimha Rao. Surprisingly while the others were allowed to flourish, Ghulam Nabi Azad ensured that a Tata airplane did not take off. Things only got worse during the two shortlived United Front governments. While H.D. Gowda could not rein in his highly controversial minister, C.M. Ibrahim, who was hell bent on stopping the Tatas, Inder Kumar Gujral was publicly humiliated by Ibrahim. Gujral announced, of all places, in Kathmandu that the Tata Airlines would eventually take off, only to find on his return home that his own minister had rebuffed him.

Vajpayee had started out with a promise of a government with a difference. Unfortunately it has become a captive of the civil aviation mafia which is determined to sabotage any reform in the this key infrastructure area. The Tata project's failure to take off has the potential to ground the Government itself.

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