:: Arun Nehru

Security may be core issue in Budget 2009

By Arun Nehru

Jul 05 : We head towards the Budget after a week of gloomy predictions of a scanty monsoon and drought and real crisis situations caused by water and power shortage, global warming and the El Nino phenomena. The monsoons have arrived a week late (nothing unusual) in 95 per cent of the country, so we can now spend the coming week agonising over the economic condition of our economy and the future. A week’s delay in the monsoon and water and power shortages pushed us to the brink. This reflects the reality of our current situation — these issues will continue to agitate us in the future because the country’s "infrastructure" gap has widened. Between achieving high gross domestic product (GDP) growth over the past decade and managing the global trade crisis, we have had little time to move to "battle stations" on infrastructure development. But we must move fast on this if we are to sustain a GDP growth in excess of six per cent in the future.

Finance minister Pranab Mukherjee is well aware that there are no miracles in economics. I expect the Budget to highlight the reality of the situation as our GDP growth dips to six-seven per cent. Clearly what is needed at this stage are reforms of our tax structure, disinvestment in public sector units and steps to attract foreign investment. And for this we may well see a revision of FDI rules in critical sectors like insurance. The Left is hardly in a position to pressurise the government, so there could be no better time to repeal archaic laws which are designed to contain rather than encourage growth. A please-all Budget is never a practical reality. We have to, of course, address global trends, but with the West still in recession and both China and India on the growth path, we are in a favourable situation to attract FDI which is critical for our infrastructure development.

I have little doubt that the Indian economy will do well, but will we achieve our political objective of narrowing the gap between the rich, the middle class and the poor? We need to generate and distribute real wealth and for this we need a GDP growth of eight-nine per cent so that we can effectively implement social schemes. The global economic crisis in the past couple of years in the developed nations has only accelerated the changing pattern of power structures in the global arena and at every step we now have to face and respond to new challenges.

Infrastructure is not limited to power, water, roads and bridges, air and rail travel. It extends virtually to every field of activity. So it is good to see that the ministry of home affairs, ministry of human resource development, ministry of environment and forests, ministry of rural development and ministry of health & family welfare, to name just a few, are attracting the best ministerial talent available in the system. On July 6, the Budget allocations will indicate the direction we take in the future. Sadly, the Opposition is in a chaos but the system of checks and balances in a democracy should never be taken for granted. Look at the immediate past where decisive victories in polls, both at the Centre and in states, resulted in chaos. It is always a mistake to interpret a verdict for good governance as an endorsement for an individual or a party. Today we have a classic example in Uttar Pradesh where the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo Mayawati seems determined to "lose" the next election with her wasteful expenditure on parks and statues!

Security issues, both external and internal, must get preferential treatment and the plan for 200-commando hubs in Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad and Kolkata is commendable. We could have another two commando units in place instantly if we could free our trained commando units which are being wasted in "ornamental" roles! Senior leaders must cut across party lines to agree to release trained National Security Guard (NSG) personnel who are currently engaged in protecting VIPs. Many politicians were given Z-category security because of the compulsions of coalition, which no longer exist. Security is never easy to withdraw from political VIPs. Perhaps, as a start, the report on threat perception can be shared with Opposition leaders before a decision is taken.

We have seen severe stress on our resources in tackling the Maoist agitation in the recent months. At our western and eastern borders there are constant encounters with the enemy and we have the additional threat from "sleeper units" in the country. Whilst security issues cannot be discussed in the media, there is no doubt that this represents the greatest challenge towards our future economic growth. We wish our neighbours well but the situation in Pakistan, Afghanistan or, for that matter, in Nepal is far from "normal".

There are detailed reports in the media about a Madras high court judge, R. Raghupathy, telling an open court that a Union minister tried to influence him for granting anticipatory bail to Dr C. Krishna Moorthy and his son S. Kirub Shridhar who are facing a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) inquiry for malpractices in medical college examinations in the Pondicherry University. The judge has also threatened to write to the Prime Minister.

A similar situation exists with the Congress MP from Nagarkurnool, Andhra Pradesh. Manda Jagannatham, the MP, reportedly slapped Ravinder Reddy, the manager of a local branch of Andhra Pradesh Grameen Vikas Bank. According to media reports, Congress President Sonia Gandhi has sought an explanation from Mr Jagannatham. So should these matters be brushed away when a simple investigation can reveal the truth? Will there be any real action in these cases?

This is not the first time that such incidents have taken place, but the difference is that today the electronic media provides irrefutable evidence and political parties cannot afford this embarrassment. We know that 24x7 media makes justice possible in hopeless cases, as it did in the Jessica Lal, Nitish Katara, Priyadarshi Muttoo and the Sanjiv Nanda hit and run case. Former Supreme Court judges and eminent lawyers have all made their point and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who has been given the verdict for good governance, has to now take a decision. Political honeymoons are brief and can be rather violent. In most cases, public trust and goodwill is often lost by acts of political arrogance where the VIP syndrome prevails over the public good.

Arun Nehru is a former Union Minister