More politics, less business for chambers of commerce

It was more politics than business for the apex chambers of commerce during the year 2002 as they were caught in the cross-fire between Leader of Opposition Sonia Gandhi and Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee as a result of which some of the crucial issues for industry fell by the wayside.

Falling prey to the tendency of one-upmanship, Confederation of Indian Industry had to face the brunt of political battle between the Bharatiya Janata Party and Congress and it paid the price for it in terms of having its annual India Economic Summit without the presence of hardly any leading politicians among the policy planners.

Instances of internal conflicts like that in Federation of Indian Export Organisations for control of the apex body, forced the government to take a tough position. As a result, the commerce ministry initiated steps to put a financial squeeze by way of tightening aids to them.

Fighting for their place in the fast liberalising economy, the chambers continued taking up issues like monopoly, mergers, threats of cheap imports and corporate defaults in the wake of government giving more powers to banks and financial institutions for recovery of their debts.

There was a lukewarm response to the new Competition Policy under which a super regulator--Competition Commission of India--would be set up to regulate the market players to check abuse of dominance in tandem with removal of any restriction of growth in terms of size and investment.

The Competition Bill 2001 was passed by Parliament recently, which among other things sought an end to The Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Act.

The government succeeded in the passage of Securitisation Bill 2002, which gave seizure powers to banks and FIs, despite reservations from some quarters of the industry that the 'draconian law' could be misused by lenders who may ignore genuine problems of the industry.

To assuage their fears, Finance Minister Jaswant Singh said in Parliament that banks and FIs would have to be sensitive to the borrowers' requirement and that a Lenders Liability Bill will be put in place soon.

Nonetheless, the inauguration of Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry's Platinum Jubilee celebration by Vajpayee evoked adverse comments that the prime minister was being the guest of a major corporate defaulter, FICCI's new president A C Muthiah, within a week of the clearance of the Securitisation Bill.

The year began on an ominous note for chambers, with CII ending its annual session with a red face following a war of words between Gandhi and Vajpayee, each trying to establish his or her political supremacy.

Inaugurating the session, Gandhi said when an industry invites a leader of opposition to inaugurate its annual session, it indicates which way the 'political winds are blowing.'

Vajpayee retorted with a terse reply. He told the captains of the industry at the concluding session that 'it did not make business sense to count chickens before they were hatched.'

He added, "If invitations to inaugurate or conclude conferences could make one speculate about the impending change in the direction of the political winds, then such people seem to think that chambers of commerce and industry have more powers to make or unmake governments than the people of India."

-- PTI

2002: The Year That Was