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Divestment process to gain pace soon: Shourie

Arun Shourie, Union minister of state for divestment, planning and programme implementation, has admitted that the pace of divestment was still slow and said it would get momentum soon. "You will see very strategic changes by April-May," he said.

Addressing the members of Indian Chamber of Commerce in Calcutta, he said that Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee was taking a very keen interest in this crucial matter in connection with the current process of economic liberalisation. He indicated that some major decisions were in the pipeline and it could be taken up at the Cabinet meeting likely to be held on November 11.

Shourie said greater emphasis would be laid on the quality of public expenditure and observed that there was a change in the total perception on the issue of divestment and added that most hurdles had been crossed.

He said it was impossible to keep alive mini-organisations that keep making losses every year and waste public money. He felt there was a need for a change of balance between the government and the industry and observed that the state could not afford to spend money on wasteful exercises.

Shourie said the overall situation throughout the world was changing very fast. He said new products could not maintain its market for not more than 14 to 16 months while new technology goes to waste within 32 to36 months and observed that "nobody is going to wait in this heartless world". He said monopoly position of different organisations including those of public sector were being eroded and the 'cry of so called anti-people policy would not really make any sense' in the hard reality of the world.

He said the government was spending about Rs 400 billion on different anti-poverty schemes every year which could be utilised by the government to easily pay Rs 8,000 for every family living below the poverty line in the country. This, he pointed out, showed that available funds could be utilised in a proper manner instead of spending through certain schemes "which only works out on paper rather than doing good for the targetted people".

He said issues get changed very easily in this world. People forget it after a lot of futile exercises, he said and pointed out that there were lot of talks on sanctions and isolation after the atomic blast conducted by this country. "Everybody has now forgotten it and were not talking of those issues and time was now to utilise available resources for the economic development," he stated.

He said there was no point in raising unnecessary noise for delaying the process at a time when nobody was willing to wait for anything. He said the country had to catch up with changing scenario and asked the industrialists to be part of the current process of change in an environment where the prime minister was willing to help.

UNI

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