The Hindu : Making light of a hard decision

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Mar 12, 2003

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National

Making light of a hard decision

By Alok Mukherjee

NEW DELHI MARCH 11. It required Prime Ministerial "intervention" to make the Finance Minister, Jaswant Singh, announce a rollback in the increase in fertilizer prices in the Lok Sabha today.

But Mr. Singh made the announcement after creating the right atmosphere wherein it looked that the decision was just a simple matter. His colleague and former Finance Minister, Yashwant Singh, who was sitting on the front benches, must have envied Mr. Singh for making light of a decision which for Mr. Sinha had been a nightmare.

Having made a long presentation while dealing with various aspects of the budget, Mr. Singh finally came to the point of fertilizer subsidy, something that all members were anxiously waiting for. But he started with facts and figures which almost made out a case for eliminating the fertilizer subsidy.

"Subsidy is a major item of expenditure and we cannot afford to have a subsidy bill of Rs. 50,000 crores. In this, food subsidy is approximately Rs. 28,000 crores, fertilizers Rs. 12,000 to Rs. 13,000 crores and petroleum products another Rs. 9,000 to Rs. 10,000 crores. The food subsidy is for PDS, minimum support price and the various schemes for poverty alleviation. It goes directly to the poor. But we have no control over fertilizer and petroleum product subsidies which are governed by various factors, including international ones. If the international prices go up, we have no control over them and in any case there is no administered price for petrol or diesel.

It is only on kerosene and LPG," Mr. Singh said.

He then went on the explain how new fertilizer plants were producing urea at below international prices while those using naphtha were producing at a higher cost which in some cases was two and a half times the cost of production of the new plants.

The blow was then softened when he said that despite this high subsidy bill, providing farmers with fertilizers at affordable prices was and would be the cornerstone of the Government's policy.

Then Mr. Singh struck a personal note.

Switching to Hindi, he said that in the last few days there had been adverse comments about him in the media which said "I am adamant, that I don't care about anybody, that I don't listen to anybody. So I went to the Prime Minister this morning and asked him if I was adamant. The Prime Minister said I should ask my conscience (apne Brahma say poocho).

"So I asked my Brahma. Now, if all sections of the House does not want fertilizer prices to be raised, then so be it. After all, it is a matter of Rs. 600-700 crores only," he said and left some of the members unsure of what he had announced.

Mr. Singh also made another personal comment towards the end of the speech.

He said many members, during the debate, had made oblique references to his upbringing.

"There seem to be many myths about me. Let me tell the House that I was born in an ordinary household, that I have tilled the land myself and I have even drawn water from the well with my own hands. So, some of the references made to me are incorrect," he said probably referring to the charges about his alleged royal lineage and his upper class background.

He then cautioned the Opposition not to play politics with urea pricing "as urea can burn the fields," since excessive use of urea could cause harm to cultivable land.

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