The Hindu : National : Should our lenders run our house, asks Abani Roy

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Wednesday, Sep 15, 2004

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Should our lenders run our house, asks Abani Roy

By Alok Mukherjee

NEW DELHI, SEPT. 14 . The controversy over the inclusion of World Bank and Asian Development Bank representatives in the Planning Commission's consultative groups continues to rage with the Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission, Montek Singh Ahluwalia, making another attempt to "convince" the Left parties. They, however, remain unconvinced and have instead taken up the matter with the Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh.

Limited purpose

In a "clarifactory" note to the four Left parties, Mr. Ahluwalia reiterated that for the "limited purpose of undertaking the mid-term appraisal of the Plan, we decided that it was necessary to obtain [the] views and perceptions of the effectiveness of the Plan programmes and policies from non-Government observers." Representatives of the World Bank and the ADB had been included in four of these groups since they dealt with the areas in which these agencies were actively involved in supporting Central Government or State Government projects, he said.

Reacting to this point, Abani Roy, leader of the Revolutionary Socialist Party, wrote to Dr. Singh saying that "we would like to make it clear that we do not believe in the concept that those who lend money to us should be allowed to decide on how we run our house. They should remain satisfied with timely repayments and not try to influence or tailor our policy-making."

Enormous expertise

In his letter, Mr. Ahluwalia argued that the Planning Commission could not do justice to the mid-term appraisal if it relied solely on the work of civil servants in the Commission commenting on the work of other civil servants in the Ministries. "There is enormous expertise outside the Government and it is essential for the Commission to make itself aware of these views."

Mr. Roy countered the point saying that Indian planners had a seven-decade expertise in development planning and policy-making and that several nations had benefited from Indian expertise. "We are totally ignoring that expertise and seeking foreign aid in a sector where we can rightly claim to be world leaders. We know very well what the prescriptions of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund-combine led to in Latin America and South East Asian countries in the last decade," Mr. Roy said in his letter to the Prime Minister.

Mr. Ahluwalia assured the Left parties that by including individuals from outside the Government in the consultative groups (he clarified that these were not "committees" but only consultative groups), the idea was not to hand over the critical decision-making involved in the mid-term appraisal on policies and correctives that need to be introduced to achieve the objectives of the National Common Minimum Programme. The Commission, taking into account the inputs received from the Central Government, the State Governments and also outsiders, would do that, he said.

Mr. Roy later told The Hindu that he remained unconvinced with Mr. Ahluwalia's clarification and that he would not take up the offer to meet the Deputy Chairman for further discussions on the issue.

More protests

For the Planning Commission, further protests have come in from some of the members of the newly-constituted task forces and consultative committees. Picking up the justification given by Mr. Ahluwalia that the World Bank gave loans to India, they said that "if the Planning Commission gratuitously inducts Bank representatives to its various bodies for this reason, then it is accepting the view that the lender is a sound and dispassionate judge of the recipient's interests, a view whose untenability is self-evident."

Picking on the second justification invoking Mahatma Gandhi's famous remark about keeping the "doors and windows open," they said this too was unconvincing because, by that argument, would the Commission be justified in having foreign Government officials on its consultative committees?

Concluding their letter to Mr. Ahluwalia, the five members — Prabhat Patnaik, Jayati Ghosh, Utsa Patnaik, C.P. Chandrashekhar and T.M. Thomas Issac — said that a precedent was being set, which, apart from betraying intellectual subservience, augured ill for the future.

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