PROMISE OVERDOSE: UPA leaders with the CMP

The 27 wise men and women who stood flashing the UPA's Common Minimum Programme (CMP) at 7 Race Course Road in Delhi on May 27 missed one basic point. Just out of a prolonged period of an overdose of promises and underdose of performance the country was not expecting them to release yet another manifesto. What was awaited was a clear programme for governance-a roadmap of not only what the UPA wants to do but also how it would do it. Instead what came out was a mish-mash of 16 party manifestoes-high on promises that are desirable, but low on promises that are credible.

No wonder the 24-page document has been treated with as much disbelief, if not contempt, as any manifesto. Stock prices fell in panic for two days after the release of the CMP and recovered only after Finance Minister P. Chidambaram's direct and specific assurances. Experts have warned of public bankruptcy if all that has been proposed is implemented. Businessmen and economists have already discounted the CMP as unimplementable and are looking up to the budget for the first serious policy statement of the UPA Government. To understand such overwhelming distrust of the new Government's first statement of intent let us go into some specifics.

Take for instance, the loftiest of all promises-the commitment on job creation. The UPA has promised to "immediately enact" a national employment guarantee law that will provide a legal assurance for at least 100 days of employment in public works programmes to one "able-bodied" member in all poor and lower middle class households. This raises many questions: Who will be eligible to get these jobs? What jobs would be created, especially in urban areas? Most importantly, what does a legal guarantee imply? Can an unemployed go to the court demanding a job from the Government? Senior advocate in the Supreme Court, Rajiv Dhawan doesn't think providing employment guarantee through an act makes it judicially enforceable. If that is the case why propose a law? At least a dozen Central employment schemes are already in operation, with one-the Jaiprakash Rojgar Guarantee Yojna-offering job guarantee in poor districts.

Then there is the promise to electrify all households in five years. In the 56 years since Independence only 56 per cent of Indian families have got electricity at home. The UPA promises to provide the remaining 44 per cent (some 8.5 crore households) electricity in five years. Similarly, public spending on education is currently about 4 per cent of the GDP. The CMP promises to raise it to 6 per cent-a target first set in 1968 by the Kothari Commission. At around 4 per cent of the GDP, spending on education is the highest ever. In fact it was during the previous Congress regime between 1991 and 1996 that spending on education as a percentage of GDP had actually fallen.

Living up to the witticism "where there is a will there is a way and where there is no will there is a survey", the CMP promises many new committees. A new administrative reforms commission will be set up to "prepare a detailed blueprint for revamping public administration". So, what happens to at least four reports on administrative reforms prepared in the past 10 years-all lying unimplemented. The last report was made for the Prime Minister's Business Advisory Council.

Where promises and committees don't work, ambiguity does. Sample some gems from the CMP: Interest rates will provide incentives to both savers and investors; states that achieve success in family planning cannot be penalised; false encounters won't be allowed; and measures will be taken to reconcile economic growth with environment conservation.

Most promises don't have deadlines. There is also confusion over what the UPA means by "immediate". The CMP promises "immediate" enactment of the job guarantee act. But it is also committed to start a massive food-for-work programme "in the interim".

H.D. Deve Gowda with the 1996 document	Manmohan Singh with version 2004

Some last minute entries are baffling, such as the review of the Electricity Act which was not mentioned in the CMP draft circulated till a day before its official release on May 27. The Act had gone through 10 drafts before it was tabled in Parliament in 2001 and was passed in 2003 with support from the Congress. Another eleventh hour change was on labour laws. The sentence "UPA recognises that some flexibility has to be provided to industry in the matter of labour policy" was replaced with "UPA recognises that some changes in labour laws may be required". There is more than a hint at extending job reservations to the private sector. The CMP promises to start a national dialogue on "how best the private sector can fulfil the aspirations of SC/ST youth".

Then there are a whole host of promises that are exact replicas of the commitments made in the CMP of the UF government in 1996 (see table). Sure, all those measures are desirable and worth committing to even after eight years. But since these promises have remained unfulfilled for so long, the UPA could have made some efforts to enlighten the country exactly how it would go about implementing them.

That really is the crux of the complaints against the UPA's CMP. It has made tall promises without demonstrating why people should believe in them. The Congress and its allies must realise that the credibility of what they say matters more when they are in government than when they were in opposition.

-with Lakshmi Iyer