India looks at UPA report card as it steps into 4th year

With the average economic growth rate in the last three years at around 8.6 percent, the government report card released here Tuesday said performance of key manufacturing sectors like textiles, steel, petrochemicals, automobiles, cement and pharmaceuticals has been impressive.

The progress in economic reforms by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has been understandably calibrated as it is critically dependent on support from Left parties which have strong reservations about key measures like opening up banking, insurance, aviation, pension fund and retail sectors to Foreign Direct Investment.

The FDI has gone up from 2.6 billion dollars in 2003-4 to 10.6 billion dollars in the first nine months of 2006-7.

Inflation, which has hovered around 6.5 per cent in recent times, remains an area of concern. The government has taken a number of fiscal and monetary measures like lowering import duty, countering speculation, raising interest rates to contain cash supply to contain inflation.

UPA came to power in May 2004 riding high on a plank of pro-rural and common man agenda against the BJP-led NDA's pro-elite and urban India bias. The UPA government's report card says it has remained focused on its pro-rural flagship programmes. It also points to doubling of budgetary support to sectors like education and health.

One of the major achievements of the UPA government has been enactment of the Right to Information (RTI) Act, accomplishing the difficult task of striking a balance between governance, transparency and civil society's critical scrutiny.

On the foreign policy front, the UPA government has made the landmark civil nuclear deal with the US, which is the centre piece of its achievements. Despite the Left parties' hue and cry against the deal with the US, a detailed bilateral agreement is now being negotiated to implement the deal that seeks to end six decades of technology denial to India. The deal has enormous significance for India's search for energy security, especially clean energy in the face of growing global warming and climate change resulting from use of fossil fuels like oil and gas.

Bilateral ties with China and Pakistan have improved with several confidence building measures having been taken and exchange of high-level visits. Bilateral trade with China has crossed the 25-billion dollar mark and efforts are on to resolve the contentious boundary issue.