Spending on social sector absymal, admits Advani

He argued that the government had just completed a year in office, which is too little time to realise the goals chalked out for the country on its completion of 50 years. Advani, however, emphasised that his government was “fully committed to accelerating and expanding the process of reforms”, which is right now restricted to the economy.

The Ministry was using Jaya Prakash Narayan’s birthday as an occasion to release the concept paper. The paper touched upon controversial issues such as strategic tapping of minority votes to get elected to legislative bodies and poor performance in the educational sector and the judiciary’s accountability.

“Seventy to 80 per cent of MLAs and Lok Sabha MPs are elected by minority of votes polled, thereby eroding their representational character. There are elected legislators who got less than 15 per cent of the votes polled. Can they be called representatives of the people,” the concept paper has questioned.

It clearly indicated the kind of legislative, judicial, administrative reforms the BJP-led government proposes to bring in or debate about.

“Each of these issues are closely related to our economy and to our overall perspective on social development. Without these reforms, neither can economic reforms be speeded up nor can they yield desired social benefits,” Advani said. The home minister reiterated his government’s commitment to abide by the NDA’s common manifesto to initiate comprehensive reforms.

Minister of Culture and Tourism Ananth Kumar on his part vowed to carry the debate on reforms to various sections of the Indian society. But the most interesting part of today’s debate on reform was the presence of former law minister Ram Jethmalani, who sat quietly throughout the programme.