Paralysis only seen inside Parliament, not outside: Sibal

Contrary to popular belief, telecom and law minister Kapil Sibal believes there has been no policy paralysis during the UPA II rule at the centre. In fact, he feels if there was any paralysis, it was seen inside the Parliament, not outside. “We have had a very successful auction; ultimately of Rs 62,000 crore in the 900 MHz and 1800 MHz band. We have taken some very hard policy decisions. We have opened up the sector,” he told CNBC-TV18’s Shereen Bhan.

(Also Watch: Excl: How 'credible' is FY15 fiscal plan? Govt answers)Below is a verbatim transcript of the interview on CNBC-TV18Shereen: There has been mixed reactions coming into the interim Budget that has been presented by Chidambaram. On one hand there is relief that Chidambaram did not dole out any big bang populous schemes or any populous measures, which could have been seen as being more aggressive to woo the voters, but would have been bad news eventually as far as the fisc and the economy are concerned. On the other hand, it seems that the UPA II has been afflicted with the problem of decision-making paralysis, which is eventually led to a slowdown and in a sense the numbers that have been thrown up by Chidambaram in terms of the fiscal math the quality of those numbers is being questioned. How would you react to both those reactions?A: First of all, I must say Chidambaram is absolutely right when he said in Parliament there has been no policy paralysis. If at all there has been a paralysis it has been a paralysis in Parliament. You look at the telecom sector itself. From 2010 onwards to 2014, the downturn started in 2010. Look at the decisions that the telecom sector has taken. Where is the policy paralysis? We have tried to turn it around. We have had a very successful auction; ultimately of Rs 62,000 crore in the 900 MHz and 1800 MHz band. We have taken some very hard policy decisions. We have opened up the sector. Now, spectrum can be used with whatever technology that you want. We are allowing mergers and acquisitions. There are going to be guidelines. The sector is responding extremely well and nobody has complained. Where is the policy paralysis? Who stopped it? Parliament stopped it. Who is stopping the goods and services tax (GST)? Not government; it is the Parliament.

Shereen: Let me address these issues one-by-one. You talk about the fact that there is actually been no policy paralysis something that Chidambaram spoke about in the Parliament in his speech as well. Let me just bring to you one instance and I want to quote to you the instance of the environment ministry. How is it that when Moily takes over within a months time you actually see projects being cleared overnight worth lakhs of crores of rupees? How is it that when a change of guard takes place in the environment ministry within a months time decisions are taken? Explain that to us. A: Your argument, in fact, can be turned around to you. If Moily can take those decisions obviously there is no policy paralysis. There may well be a minister, who you think should have taken certain decisions. That is not a policy paralysis of the government. When you attack the government for policy paralysis you attack the whole government. The fact of the matter is if you are unhappy with a particular minister—another minister came and took those decisions. That is not policy paralysis of the government. Why do you take one instance to prove the point? I am giving you the example of the telecom sector. Give me one instance where there is a policy paralysis in the telecom sector? None whatsoever in the last several years and there will be many ministries like this where there will be no policy paralysis. Policy paralysis is in Parliament. The big ticket items should have been discussed in Parliament and the roadmap should have been cleared by Parliament. The GST, Insurance Bill, Education Bill, all the bills relating to corruption; who stopped us? This has been five years of Parliament, which has worked the least in the history of our country and who is responsible for that? Shereen: I also want you to defend the position because when we talk about paralysis. This is the only government where on every matter either there was an EGoM, GoM decisions where even Cabinet approval was not required were forced to be taken to the Cabinet because inter-ministerial consultation went on forever, ministers couldn’t see eye-to-eye. Isn’t that a fact?A: If you look at the hard facts of this government in the last 5 years what this government has done no government in the history of this country has done. Look at your Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana. Look at the road that we have built and you talk about policy paralysis. In NDA’s time, the extent of roads built was 1,10,000 kilometers. In our time we built 3,89,000 kilometers. Look at coal production it has moved up from 341 million tonne to 554 million tonne. Look at agricultural production. It moved from 208 million tonne to almost 263 million tonne, hopefully, next year. You look at any parameter of the economy, look at steel, look at GDP growth. It bucks the trend. The trend in the last 32-33 years is 6.2 percent. We bucked that trend. Compare us to the emerging markets in the global economy, all are below us. We have done very well.If tapering has terrible effect on other emerging markets, we never had such an effect on our market. Yet we are able to give 5 percent growth whereas other economies are less than 2 percent—I am talking about emerging economies. We went through a whole global economic crisis, then a euro zone crisis and we came out rather well.China's growth has come down from 9.7 percent this year; they suggest that it’s likely to be only about 7 percent. So, fact of the matter is if there were GoM it was to resolve issues, to take decisions forward. We took decisions forward and what we have done for this country in every sector of the economy has never been done in the history of India.

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