Launching Lok Manch, an ‘‘apolitical’’ forum to help the government take ‘‘corrective measures’’ in economic policy, Defence Minister George Fernandes today attacked disinvestment, a key element of this policy. ‘‘Disinvestment created unemployment and this negative aspect should be taken into consideration while divesting government stake in public sector enterprises,’’ he said while inaugurating a one-day seminar on employment generation attended by HRD Minister Murli Manohar Joshi and Govindacharya. ‘‘We should think before disinvestment,’’ Fernandes said. ‘‘I don’t say it shouldn’t be done but we should see its pros and cons.’’ He added that disinvestment did not mean progress. Asked if he had opposed the Cabinet decision on VSNL’s disinvestment, he said: ‘‘What happens in the Cabinet is not spoken publicly.’’ The NDA convenor said today that supporting swadeshi did not mean taking the country back to the ‘‘bullock-cart age’’ but there should be an effort to find a solution from within and adopt technology that was relevant and appropriate for India. ‘‘There is nothing wrong in articulating swadeshi slogan at a time when world’s wealthiest country, the US, was chanting the slogan ‘be American buy American’.’’ He also opposed what he called the organised effort to wipe out small-scale industries in the name of modernisation and liberalisation. While the industry had gone bankrupt, industrialists continued to lead an opulent lifestyle at the cost of public money, he said. Fernandes has been working towards creating a platform like the Lok Manch. In 1999, when the Prime Minister announced creating 100 million jobs over the next 10 years, a committee was set up under Montek Singh Ahluwalia to suggest ways to create these job opportunities. Its report, said Lok Manch convenor and Fernandes’s party colleague Shambhu Srivastava, was ‘‘capitalist to the core, based on the IMF model, a sure recipe for job reduction.’’ An upset Fernandes wrote to K C Pant in September last year who conceding to his demand set up another committee under Planning Commission economist S P Gupta. He released his report in June this year which says that a target of 100 million is within reach if the country follows the small-scale industries model and stresses on ‘‘swadeshi.’’ Though he is the chief patron, Fernandes says that this is a multi-party organisation. ‘‘We know we cannot leave the job of employment-generation to the government alone. We have to involve other parties as well hence a non-political forum,’’ explained Srivastava. Lok Manch has ‘‘financial and moral’’ support from All India Council of Small Scale Industries whose president S S Singhania also participated. The agenda till the end of this year was charted out today: an 11-member working group was set up which will go across the country, sector-wise and region-wise, prepare a set of recommendations to be presented to the Prime Minister. Four regional conferences would also be held in Guwahati, Patna, Hyderabad and Ahmedabad. Simultaneously, state working groups will be formed which will present their recommendations to the respective state chief ministers. On October 2, a second national Conference would be held to build a strategy for a people’s campaign.
