The chamber, in a note submitted to the major political parties -- Congress, Bharatiya Janta Party, the Left and Third Front -- stated that if the recommendations are implemented, "India will witness sustained GDP growth at the rate of eight per cent per annum, reduce population growth to zero per cent and ensure 100 per cent literacy in 10 years".

In a press statement issued here, Assocham president KP Singh said that special group formed in the chamber would shortly hold discussions with the manifestoes committee of the various parties.

The chamber has stated that the parties should clearly outline their agenda for important sectors such as industry, agriculture and rural sector. The manifestoes should also outline the parties' plans forprudential fiscal management, capital market and for dealing with labour.

The manifestoes should state whether the parties intend to honour international commitments, such as those to World Trade Organisation, specific action plans to help Indian companies restructure.

The parties should also make a commitment to delicense all non-strategic industries and scrap the IDR Act as well as specify the few strategic items which would require licence.

Assocham is in favour of scrapping reservation for the small scale sector as 72 per cent of the items reserved for the sector are not manufactured at all.

It has also stated that the Foreign Investment Promotion Board should be replaced by Investment Promotion Board which can take care of major foreign investments coming into the country and also help domestic investors in de-bottleneck their problems. The new government should also open up life, general and health insurance products to private sector participation and increased competition.

For theagriculture and rural sector, the chamber has suggested that the parties should work towards deregulation as also allow free pricing. In addition, the new government should announce steps to empower local bodies financially enabling them to implement rural social welfare programmes effectively. A plan of action for improved credit delivery mechanism to rural sector should also be announced.

To enable and channelise domestic and foreign private investment into infrastructure, procedural and institutional reforms should be announced and independent and transparent institutions should be put in place. The new government should also create infrastructure development fund, outside consolidated fund of India and announce ways and means of mobilising resources of this fund.

A new liberal aviation policy should also be announced.

For prudential fiscal management, the new government should formulate plans to rationalise subsidies through better targeting and a time bound plan to reduce aggregate subsidies tofive per cent of the GDP by 2003. A cost-effective delivery mechanism to reach the targeted group should also be evolved, the note stated.