These views were expressed by none other than FICCI president Harsh Pati Singhania in his presidential address at the 82nd session of FICCI, held in Delhi on February 27, 2010 - a day after the Finance Minister had presented the Budget in Parliament. Incidentally, Pranab Mukherjee was the guest of honour at the FICCI session.

Addressing the FM, FICCI chief Singhania said, “We had great apprehension that in your Budget, you would focus mainly on the issue of fiscal deficit and withdraw a large part of the stimulus. We are happy and relieved that you have chosen to focus strongly on growth while simultaneously dealing with fiscal deficit and providing a roadmap for fiscal consolidation.”

Mr. Singhania also appreciated that “The increased thrust on agriculture, infrastructure, education and health along with the unorganised sector, which employs 92 per cent of our people, is undoubtedly the right prescription for growth.” The only “disappointment” of FICCI related to “the increase in MAT from 15 per cent to 18 per cent. Sir, we had actually hoped that you would bring it down to 10 per cent.”

The FICCI chief's expression of satisfaction and relief along with a bit of disappointment at the Budget 2010-11, for observers, was a clear pointer of the approximation of understanding already reached between the big business houses and the UPA ruling policy-makers on the essentials of economic policy. Mr. Singhania had, in fact, much more to say on the Budget but he chose to reserve it for another occasion and said: “I will deal with the Budget aspects in greater detail in the meeting called by you in the afternoon.” And, meanwhile, the FICCI chief went on to unfold “FICCI's action agenda for the nation for the next decade”.

Only a day before, on February 26, the Finance Minister had conceptualised in his budget speech that development and economic reforms had shifted the focus of economic activity towards the “non-government actors”. Also, this is bringing into sharp focus “the role of Government as an enabler”. Should one conclude that Mr. Mukherjee's presence at the FICCI session and the meeting with the FICCI bigwigs at a conclave arranged by him in the afternoon, soon after the session, was all in the discharge of the Government's role as an “enabler”? After all, FICCI happens to be an organisation of very important 'non-government corporate activists', to whom, according to Pranab Mukherjee, the focus of economic activity has shifted after the economic reforms.

However desirable, this is not the place to compare the FICCI's action agenda for the nation in which it talks about the need to develop fast Agriculture, Manufacturing, Infrastructure, Social Sector, including Education and Health, etc. with the way the Budget 2010-11 has sought to deal with these sectors.

The effort here is to focus on the impact of this development on the country's working people. FICCI, for instance, has shown special interest, apparently concern, about the country's 92 per cent unorganised workforce. What is likely to be the impact on this workforce of the common approach of the ruling policy-makers and the corporate houses? Likewise, what is likely to be the fate of 78 per cent of the working people living on Rs 9 to Rs 20 a day? Arjun Sengupta National Commission on Enterprises in the Unorganised Sector had specifically focussed on this large segment of population and underlined the need for creating a Social Security Fund for them.

A visible impact of the growing approximation between the ruling policy-makers and the corporate houses has been the wildly spreading labour law violations with impunity, increasing contractualisation and casualisation of workers in public and private sectors.

FICCI has a labour-policy-making wing also - the All India Organisation of Employers (AIOE). The AIOE, too, held its 82nd Annual General Meeting (AGM) on February 25, 2010. Union Labour Minister Mallikarjun Kharge was the guest of honour here. AIOE president Ashok Kajaria outlined the FICCI's labour policy outlook in his presidential address at the AGM.

Like FICCI president Singhania, AIOE chief Kajaria too was quite satisfied and happy with the Government's economic policies. “We are also expecting 7 per cent growth in our economy in this year, which is satisfactory by all means,” he said, adding, “This could be possible due to a strong industrial base, sound economic policies and global confidence in our democratic system.”

Then follows the list of Business-and-Industry's problems and the employers' expectations from the Government. Says Kajaria: The industry has not totally recovered from the grip of the recession. Business with the western countries had gone down and export had suffered a setback.

And then begins the employers' prescription: How long it will take to recover fully, “the situation needs to be addressed through adequate policy interventions. A huge internal market is our strength which needs to be tapped.” What sort of policy intervention do they expect from the Government? Here is what they want: “Flexibility of operations at industry level can stimulate job creation. Flexible shift operations, leave rules, lay-offs and retrenchment policies could be of crucial significance in this context. These rigorous measures will come in the way of fighting the ongoing slow-down.”

It is therefore obvious that whether the question is of increasing exports or the question now is of tapping the internal market, employers' prescription is the same: freedom for them to 'entry and exit' and to 'recruit and retrench'. Ruling policy-makers can be seen to have more than fallen in line in the matter of permitting the employers use of the 92 per cent population to the best of their advantage. This so-called 92 per cent population is not all unskilled and semi-skilled. They also include skilled, highly skilled and thousands of engineers rolling out every year from universities.

It is not for nothing that where India leads the world in the billionaires' club on the one hand; it is second to none in the growth of yawning disparities, increasing impoverishment and suicides of thousands of peasants, on the other. And the policy-makers feel no shame in gloating over employment growth and GDP growth. (IPA Service)