An agenda for the last lap

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overloading or hastening wagon return time is a cause for worry, too.

Fifth, on the strengthening of institutions, an area close to the PM’s heart, the record is at best a mixed one. Key regulatory positions remain vacant and those appointed have raised eyebrows on the selection process with suggestions of government playing favourites. This emasculates the autonomy of regulatory oversight. Similarly, in spite of all the rhetoric about civil service reforms, key appointments do not bear the stamp of a new selection culture.

Sixth, in several areas, policy design remains mired in controversy. This is true of SEZs, reforms in education, harmonising quotas within the framework of a merit-based order and acquisition of agricultural land for industrialisation, to name a few. We would await the outcome of the National Development Council a few days from now on the new initiatives on agriculture.

The UPA, in the last two years of its term, cannot afford to exhibit a holding pattern. History judges governments by what they achieve, and give little allowance for the extenuating circumstances that retarded timely action. The UPA needs to build on its achievements and work on the unfinished agenda.