Economist Lord Meghnad Desai on Saturday took a dig at the Special Economic Zones and the UPA’s ‘coalition politics’. He said the SEZs were land scams and they had failed to scatter industrial development to middle-level and small towns.
Delivering the K.L.N. Prasad Memorial Lecture on Could the Indian Economy Do Better, at the Administrative Staff College of India here, Lord Desai said there was a current malaise in governance and in government. He felt that people regretted the lack of decisiveness in policy-making on part of the Congress-led UPA government, which has over 200 Lok Sabha seats. “The government seems to take decisions and then withdraw from them,” he said.
He urged the Centre to look at “progressive subsidies” rather than the “regressive subsidies” being implemented at present. He advocated removal of fuel subsidy. Lord Desai said India’s manufacturing sector prominently has skilled or semi-skilled manual labour and that industries should be set up in small and medium towns by creating amenities for workers.
Lord Desai, opposing FDI, said the labour force should be increased in the manufacturing sector.
A new climate of federalism was the need of the hour and the states should be allowed to set up industries as they required, he said, adding, the policy of scattered industrialisation should be there in the entire country in place of SEZs.