Manmohan's Govt--2

1. Mr. Pranab Kumar Mukherjee—The main factor against him is his age. He is not able to comprehend what he has to talk within some minutes after he opens his mouth!

First, fiscal deficiet is staring in his face. He has to—

a. sell the Governments share in the PSUs (including the navaratnas—to which the Communists were opposing vehemently hitherto);

b. to contain the effects of economic depression, he has to spell out some more packages;

c. to take some more other steps, besides reducing repo & reverse repo rates, to bail out the economy;

d. to rationalize subsidies and remove control on oil prices;

e. to bring new things and services under the Tax net;

f. to increase FDI in Insurance, Retail Trade and Infrastructure sectors;

g. to permit investment of PF & Pension Funds in Equities

—all of which are double edged weapons—which may lead to his ousting as is the case with Chidambaram!

The Government Debt is around Rs.3,26,000 crores

—so he cannot resort to public pleasing steps like Debt waiver/Debt relief;

he has to spend around Rs.30,000 crores on National Rural Employment Generation Scheme—and he may have to cut down the same to some extant!

He cannot take things casually in the coming five years (God permit him be in the post so long) !

He may garner support from some quarters for selling of Government share in the PSUs but the other things are not easily possible.

He has already declared that the further packages will be in consonance with the further financial reforms.

He has also declared that his priority would be to restore the growth rate to at least 7%, and to improve job opportunities through manifold increase of outlay.

Hope he succeeds!