Insulating the economy from the global downturn will be an immediate priority, but the UPA government?s overall approach and policy will be fashioned keeping the aam aadmi in mind, newly sworn in Cabinet ministers of the Manmohan Singh government have affirmed.
While conceding that the government would have to take steps to keep the growth rate above 6%, senior ministers said the clear mandate for the Congress and its supporting partners was because of its pledge to work for the common man.
?Whatever we do, the aam aadmi will be the central figure in our programmes. Any reforms or policies will have to be crafted with the aam aadmi in mind,? Cabinet minister Veerappa Moily told FE. The former Karnataka chief minister who headed the Administrative Reforms Commission in the previous government maintained that it was the focus on the common man and rural poor that led to the Congress?s return to power. ?Many of the flagship programmes initiated by the UPA government in the last five years, especially NREGA, have increased the purchasing power of the rural poor? Moily said.
His Cabinet colleague Vayalar Ravi asserts that protection from the global meltdown was possible only because the country has steadfastedly refused to follow the West. ?The Indian economy can sustain itself only through the rural route? he maintains.
Both Moily and Ravi are of the view that the economy can get back to the 9% trajectory. ?Within a year, we would like to put the economy on the 9% track? said Moily, who also believes that the reforms process will be much faster now that the government no longer has to critically depend on the support of the Left parties. ?Reforms are a must, whether fiscal or in governance. Certainly, there was a handicap earlier. There is a need to create domestic demand as well as to ensure speedy delivery systems,? he says, adding that a corruption free environment for investment must be created.
Ravi, however, cautions that the government must tread carefully while pushing the reforms agenda. ?After all, it is the nationalisation of banks that has worked for us now when the whole world is taking a hit because of the meltdown,? he says.