The CPI-M has said states where it is in power can take up loans for development projects from outfits like the International Monetary Fund and the Asian Development Bank.
Even foreign direct investment has been permitted so long as it is for acquiring advanced technology and upgrading productive capacity.
Releasing the organisational report of the 18th party congress on economic issues, senior politburo member Sitaram Yechury said ‘‘regulation’’ of finance capital flow was in the interest of the workers and would help in the ‘‘economic sovereignity of the country’’, at threat from unbridled globalisation.
But it took several rounds of debate at the recent Central Committee meeting in Kolkata before West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadev Bhattacharya’s reformist moderate line was “accepted”. Tripura Chief Minister Manik Sarkar and a section of the CPI-M’s Kerala unit are said to support the Bhattacharya line.
Sensitive to criticism that the CPI-M is following different economic policies in Kolkata and New Delhi, Yechury said development loans from organisations like the World Bank could be accepted given that its state governments are strapped for funds. But this is subject to the proviso that the recipients are not made to go in for structural adjustment and downsizing.
A subtle shift has been made in the CPI-M’s disinvestment policy: Navratnas are not be touched but are instead encouraged to go global, potentially viable PSUs should be given another lease of life and the chronically ill put on the block.
But CPI-M members will not be allowed to associate with NGOs that have foreign funding unless the party’s top policy-making body okays it.
Yechury said the CPI-M is pushing for a Central legislation that state governments require to exert ‘‘social control’’ over mushrooming private colleges and hospitals.
The politburo member clarified that an incoming communist government would not reverse any decision taken by its predecessor that may be contrary to the CPI-M’s party line.