The Hindu : Jaswant swears by reforms

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Jan 04, 2003

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Jaswant swears by reforms

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI JAN. 3. Signalling his commitment to reforms, the Union Finance Minister, Jaswant Singh, today emphasised that the Government should withdraw from those sectors where private participation was more productive and more efficient.

The Government's role should basically centre round creating an enabling environment for public-private partnership, link fiscal, monetary and other incentives to productivity and streamlining public investment and social welfare programmes, Mr. Singh said while inaugurating the 15th All-India Conference of Chartered Accountants here today.

``The Government should withdraw from the sectors where private participation is more productive and more efficient. The scope of the Government remains largely in social sectors and infrastructure as the Government is the ultimate risk taker,'' Mr. Singh said.

Asserting that the freer the market, the stronger should be the regulatory mechanism, he said there could be no reforms in the absence of strong regulatory mechanisms. However, ``genuine reforms depend on the combination of market forces, the formal rules which the companies dislike and the self regulation which they prefer,'' he added.

There was a need for redefining the Government's role and the role of the regulator, for which the Centre had initiated a number of legislations that were not only ``with the time but ahead of time.''

Mr. Singh stressed the need for better coordination, cooperation and private-public partnership. ``A well-governed state and orderly functioning of markets are essential for high growth and sustainability,'' he said, emphasising on consultations, flexibility, decentralisation, selectivity, monitoring and coordination of policies and operations. He said that market failures had to be repaired and institutional structure and legal systems strengthened by improving corporate governance. Consequently, the responsibilities of professionals such as chartered accountants had increased to ensure better corporate governance and best international practices.

In the wake of corporate failures worldwide, he said ``chartered accountants need to perform their jobs without any fear or pressure.''

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