NEW DELHI, FEB 26: A day before the general Budget, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) has given its thumbs-down verdict to the Bharatiya Janata Party Government's economic performance.Painting a dismal picture of the economy, CPI (M) leaders point to certain key decisions taken in the time that the BJP has been in office, which they said would push the economy into a downward spiral and prove detrimental to the country's interests in the long-term.The increasing fiscal deficit, drop in exports and a decline in agricultural production and industrial recession reflect the economic mess the country finds itself in, CPI (M) general secretary Harkishan Singh Surjeet said in an article in the latest issue of the party organ, People's Democracy."An adherent votary of the free market, the BJP-led coalition has been opening up the economy more and more to multinational penetration at the cost of domestic manufacturers and indigenous industry", Surjeet said.While attempting to free industry ofbureaucratic controls, the government has not only delicensed certain industries, but is dismantling the public sector, promoting a process of buy-back of shares by profitable public sector undertakings and devaluing their assets, he said.Taking the argument further, politburo member Sitaram Yechury pointed to the policy adopted by the BJP Government of bending over backwards to woo multinational corporations and measures to make capital available to the corporate sector at a cheaper rate. "In other words, a greater dose of liberalisation, further opening up of the Indian economy, and reduction of government expenditure are paraded as the solution to the current economic mess", Yechury writes in People's Democracy.Describing the malaise gripping the economy, he points to the restricted size of the domestic market where a large chunk of the population is being bypassed by the liberalisation process, sluggish demand, growing unemployment, high rates of inflation and a decline in the real earningsof the people.Recommending a shift in strategy, the CPI (M) suggests an increase in government capital expenditure in social and economic infrastructure to generate employment and boost domestic demand. It calls for an expansion of the tax base to bolster revenues, removal of irregularities in export-import trade, recovery of written-off loans estimated at a whopping Rs 40,000 crore and bringing the rural rich into the tax net.
