NEW DELHI, 28 May 2004 — The United Progressive Alliance government announced its basic policy blueprint yesterday, promising economic reforms aimed at 7-8 percent growth while ensuring the rural voters who swept the coalition to power shared the spoils.
There were few surprises in the policy road map for the next five years, called the Common Minimum Program, which was finalized late on Wednesday after long negotiations between the coalition and its Communist allies.
While there was a slight left-wing slant in the document and an emphasis on directing funds to the countryside, where 70 percent of the country’s one billion people live, the commitment to reforms and growth was strong.
“The United Progressive Alliance reiterates its abiding commitment to economic reforms with a human face that stimulate growth, investment and employment,” the government said.
Market traders said the policies were mostly expected but the benchmark stock index closed about half a percent down in the belief that the pace of reforms would drop. Privatization of state firms is especially likely to slow down significantly.
The coalition swept to power this month after the previous Hindu right-wing government was handed a stunning defeat in what was seen as the revenge of the rural poor for being left out of an economic boom.
The previous government had come to the election on a platform of high growth and peace with Pakistan. But it fell, and the new coalition, anxious to be seen as different, plans to earmark more funds for education, rural credit and ending farm debt. Farmers would also be protected from cheap imports.
“This document reflects the mandate of the people for a stable and secular government, a government that will care for all sections of people,” Congress Party chief Sonia Gandhi said.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said the program “seeks to accelerate the tempo of social and economic change, paying particular attention to the needs of our agriculture, our farmers, small industries, village industries, artisans and other neglected sectors of our economy.”
The policy document said an anti-terrorism law “which was used disproportionately against Muslims by the previous right-wing government” will be scrapped.
The government said it had been concerned that the Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA) “has been grossly misused in the past two years.”
“There will be no compromise in the fight against terrorism, but given the abuse of POTA that has taken place, the UPA government will repeal it while existing laws are enforced strictly,” the government said in the Common Minimum Program.
The Prevention of Terrorism Act broadened the scope for the death penalty and gave prosecutors more leeway to detain and interrogate suspects.
Amnesty International had called for the act to be repealed, saying it was responsible for “many violations of human rights.”
The anti-terror act was pushed into law in March 2002 by the then Hindu right-wing government in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States and a Kashmiri rebel raid on the Parliament.
Critics say the act has been used mostly against the Muslim minority and has allowed state leaders to target their opponents without oversight from the federal government.
The Dravida Munnetra Kazhgam (DMK), a leading party in Tamil Nadu that is allied with the new government, had demanded the end of the act after Chief Minister J. Jayalalitha used the law to jail her opponents.
