'Does The Government Not Have Any Role?'

Excerpts from the BJP's deputy leader of opposition's response to the PM's statement

The Prime Minister, in your Statement you have rightly stated that the value of Indian rupee is determined by the fundamentals of Indian economy and being an economist and an economist administrator of vast experience you would surely realise that the only link between good economy and good politics is good governance, and the Leader of the Opposition has already indicated some of the reasons.

How much of Indian economy and its fundamentals have come under strain and stress because of domestic reasons and do they impinge upon issues of Governance? You have talked of consensus which is quite welcome, hon. the Prime Minister.

To be very precise, I want to mention one specific instance. Infrastructure set up development, it is neutral to the political divide. Now what has happened? Power sector is completely down because of governance issue, corruption.

Real estate is under severe strains because of the rise of abuse of authority for family connections.

Thirdly, National Highway, a great growth area of NDA regime comes under severe stress because of strike, corruption in National Highway Authority and what not.

Lastly, another area of growth, Telecommunications, is coming under serious strain because of 2G spectrum price.

The question is, are these issues being addressed, hon. Prime Minister? This is my first query.

Honestly, the second query, hon. Prime Minister is, you have rightly talked about certain decisions taken by the American Principal Bank. I can understand. But, hot money is hot money. What about Indian money and why the Indians are not investing in India? Why is manufacturing down? What are the reasons for that? All these we would like to know from you, hon. the Prime Minister, because those issues are, indeed, very important. Obviously, Indian economy cannot only be driven by foreign investments per se because they are hot money. They come and go.

Hon. Prime Minister, you talked about bad bank loans, rightly so, in your Statement. We would like to know as to how much of bad loans is involved in hundreds of projects which have come under clout because of corruption and because of a whole range of other issues impinging upon governance. My homework says, and I would like to be corrected , that only in gold, Rs. 1,20,000 crores of bank money is locked up because of this.

The last point is: You have said on inflation that RBI will take steps to contain inflation. Hon. Prime Minister, does the Government not have any role? And, we have seen the statement of the RBI Governor today and it indicates that the RBI and the Government are not on the same page. If that is the situation, how is it that the RBI alone can contain inflation and what is the role of the Government?

These are the important issues.

Obviously, Mr. Prime Minister, you have spoken today. We respect that. But, the country would like to know from you answers to these questions too. Thank you.