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Two gentlemen and a lady -- A ministerial pursuit of Mammon for motherland

Three senior members of the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government -- Sikandar Bakht (industry), Thambi Durai (transport) and Sushma Swaraj (information and broadcasting, and communications) -- have made a joint appearance at the international forum in Washington to reaffirm India's commitment to economic reforms and liberalisation, in an apparent effort to remove apprehensions that its talk of swadeshi plan had created among American investors.

Participating in the seventh annual World Economic Development Congress this weeky, they made a strong pitch for American investment, running into billions of dollars, to finance the development of country's infrastructure, a major bottleneck to achieving higher growth path required for the elimination of poverty.

Bakht, seniormost among the visiting ministers, said ''we dispelled all doubts on our commitment to liberalisation and economic reforms process. We not only continued the reform process which is already in place, but imparted to it, if I may say, a turbo-charged momentum.''

"We have not gone back on any of the reform initiatives of the earlier governments. On the contrary, we have added significant initiatives of our own," he remarked.

Conscious of the American sensitivity to the lack of protection to intellectual property, Bakht said the BJP-led coalition had shown its commitment to the protection of intellectual property rights by acceding to the Paris convention on the subject on September 7, and further declared our resolve to meet our obligations and trips under the World Trade Organisation.

Durai and Swaraj joined him in listing facilities that their respective ministries have provided to woo foreign investors.

Bakht said, ''We are opening the Indian economy to further inflows of foreign direct investment proposals with 100 per cent. Foreign equity are welcome in most sectors including auto and white goods sector, basic and immediate goods sectors and in all areas of infrastructure except telecommunication where the FDI is subject to a cap of 49 per cent."

He said 100 per cent FDI was permitted even in sectors reserved for small scale industry with an export obligation of 50 per cent of production. All projects with the FDI were free to access domestic debt.

The minister said India had approved the FDI proposals worth $ 52 billion in the last eight years of which over $ 13 billion had flown into the country.

Swaraj was not far behind the industry minister in eulogising the market-oriented reforms. ''The liberalisation process which gathered momentum in the 1990 has resulted in unprecedented changes which are sweeping the landscape of India's economy and commercial life,'' she said. Durai expressed similar views.

UNI