The Hindu : Front Page : Left parties oppose hike in FDI cap

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Jul 13, 2004

Front Page

Front Page

Left parties oppose hike in FDI cap

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, JULY 12. The four Left Parties today decided to oppose the move to increase the share of foreign capital in the telecom, insurance and aviation sectors and asked the Government to reconsider the proposal.

They also decided to conduct public campaigns to mobilise support to protect these sectors from further foreign control.

The decision came a day after the Polit Bureau of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) reasserted the party's opposition to the proposal to raise the cap on the foreign direct investment in these three sectors.

The CPI (M) Polit Bureau member, Prakash Karat, told The Hindu, that the Left parties decided to meet regularly and strengthen the coordination committee of the four parties. The United Progressive Alliance leadership would be approached to have a consultative mechanism for taking up issues regarding the implementation of the Common Minimum Programme and related issues.

At its meeting today, the coordination committee discussed the budget proposals. They welcomed the focus on agricultural development, education, and repair of water bodies, provision of Rs. 14,194 crores to the central Public Sector Enterprises and the additional budgetary allocation of Rs. 10,000 crores for the Central plan.

However, the Left parties said the increase in the share of foreign capital in the telecom, insurance and civil aviation sectors was "uncalled for," a CPI (M) Central Committee statement said. Raising the FDI cap to 74 per cent in telecom would result in foreign companies operating in this "sensitive sector'' which had even security implications. Increasing the FDI cap to 49 per cent in insurance would further privatise the sector and harm the public sector insurance companies such as the General Insurance Corporation and the Life Insurance Corporation.

The meeting was attended by the CPI (M) general secretary, Harkishan Singh Surjeet, his CPI counterpart, A.B. Bardhan, the RSP Central Committee member and MP, Abani

Roy, Manoj Bhattacharya, RSP MP, the CPI (M) Polit Bureau members, Mr. Karat and Sitaram Yechury and Pallab Sengupta, CPI (M) leader. The general secretary of the All-India Forward Bloc, Debabrata Biswas, could not attend the meeting.

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