BUDGET '98
Made In India
Continued...INTERVIEW: YASHWANT SINHA
"Criticisms are urban India's"
A combative finance minister met Executive Editor Prabhu
Chawla, Senior Editor Sudeep Chakravarti and Special Correspondent Shefali
Rekhi for a no-holds barred interview last week. But tough talk and all, there were
enough unanswered questions. Excerpts:
Complete text of interview with Finance Minister
What's the focus of the budget?
We regard rural India to be central to India's total development. And I am not apologetic
in the least whether it pleases somebody or it doesn't.
Aren't you following Jawaharlal Nehru's policies?
He said India lives in the villages.
He might have said that. But if you look at the various plans of Nehru, this is what he
did not do. Why is it necessary for me to say in 1998 that only 37 per cent of our
cultivable land has assured irrigation.
It's the delivery system people worry about most.
Will the money reach the poor, the farmers?
The delivery system will not depend on a babu in the bank. Micro-credit and self-help
schemes will take care of that, it will also reduce the pressure on agriculture. We will
also make money available to the Panchayati Raj institutions. Now they must decide whether
the priority in the villages is building a road, or bringing electricity, or whatever.
Will monitoring officers for foreign investment
projects be penalised if they can't stick to the deadline?
Obviously, when I say in my budget speech that it is the personal responsibility of the
monitoring officer to get clearances in place within 90 days, including whatever needs to
be done at the state level, then it's a great responsibility on him.
How do you propose to double foreign investment
inflows in two years when there are no major incentives in this budget?
A lot of incentives already exist.
What about insurance? If a foreign company has a
minority stake in an Indian firm, will such joint ventures be permitted?
It's a hypothetical question. We will bring legislation in the winter session of
Parliament. Then we will invite Indian companies. If they can't do business, we'll take a
fresh look.
The import duty structure favours some and
disfavours others.
I have not increased import duties across the board. An 8 per cent import duty is being
propagated as protectionist. by reducing the duties to below GATT-bound rates in some
cases, earlier regimes exposed Indian industry to dangers which they were not ready to
face yet. The trend should be to go on reducing import duties to bring them in line with
international standards, and in due course we will be looking at these import surcharges.
People fear a hike in prices.
What is this theory based on? We have not raised diesel prices. The price of petrol does
not have a cascading effect on other prices. If I have raised excise duties somewhere,I
have also reduced a number of duties. On balance, there is more reduction than increase.
The only point against me is that 8 per cent excise duties will be inflationary. This is
urban India's criticism.
So this is a bhagidari budget.
This is a practical budget.
Isn't the government buckling under political
pressure by rolling back petrol and urea prices?
The two have to be separated. On petrol there was a misunderstanding. As a result a higher
price was being charged. When I got to know about it, we had it corrected within 24 hours.
Rs 400 crore-Rs 500 crore was collected on that one day. I will pass it on to the National
Highway Authority. Urea is different. True, we have lost Rs 1,000 crore.
The previous two regimes ran into rough weather
with their revenue estimates. What about yours?
I have underestimated my receipts. I want to look good at the end of the year, not weave
dreams at the beginning.
There has been no commitment to reduce government
expenditure.
Total expenditure has been reduced as compared to that in the interim budget. But I must
confess that eight weeks are not enough to evolve a policy in this regard.
On disinvestment, the intent is strong, but it is
not time-bound.
It is far more concrete than ever before. The Cabinet will sit and decide on each case.
There is no time frame for reducing holding to 26 per cent because it is not the intention
of the government to sell at any price. Rather, to sell at the best possible price.
Your budget has no big ideas or words or big
decisions.
You can go for the big bang theory and then end up banging yourself.
Has the budget factored in the sanctions?
I cannot reflect on imaginary numbers. America is the only country which has
imposed sanctions. Their laws say that American banks will not lend to India. But the
Government of India is not borrowing from them. How a well-informed person like Manmohan
Singh is saying this, I don't know.
The US might prevent transfer of hi-tech material.
Even without sanctions, they did not give us the supercomputer. They even prevented the
erstwhile Soviet Union from giving us cryogenic engines. That has always been the case.
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