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15.04 hrs. Title: Combined discussion on the Budget (General) for the year 2002-2003, Demands for Grants on Account (General) for the year 2002-2003, Demands for Supplementary Grants (General) for the year 2001-2002, Demands for Excess Grants (General) for the year 1998-1999. (Not concluded) MR. CHAIRMAN: The House will now take up discussion on Item No.19 to 22 together. Motions moved: "That the respective sums not exceeding the amounts on Revenue Account and Capital Account shown in the third column of the Order Paper, be granted to the President, out of the Consolidated Fund of India, on account, for or towards defraying the charges during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 2003, in respect of heads of Demands entered in the Second column thereof against Demands No.1 to 28, 30, 31, 33 to 58, 60 to 92, 94 to 95, 97 to 102. That the respective sums not exceeding the amounts on Revenue Account and Capital Account shown in the third column of the Order Paper, be granted to the President, out of the Consolidated Fund of India, of certain further sums necessary to defray the charges that will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 2002, in respect of the heads of Demands entered in the Second column thereof, against Demands No.1, 2, 4 to 6, 8 to 10, 12, 18, 21, 23 to 25, 27, 30, 32, 34, 37, 38, 40, 42 to 47, 50 to 53, 57, 59, 62, 64, 65, 71 to 76, 78, 80, 81, 83 to 88, 92, 93, 96 to 100. That the respective excess not exceeding the amounts shown in the third column of the Order Paper be granted to the President, out of the Consolidated Fund of India, to make good the excess on the respective grants during the year ended on the 31st March, 1999, in respect of the following Demands entered in the Second column thereof Demand Nos.1, 5, 11, 13, 16 to 20, 25, 26, 28, 31, 34, 35, 37, 38, 41, 43, 45, 47, 52, 54, 56, 60, 63, 73, 78, 80, 81, 87, 95, 96, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102 and 103." Now, Shri Mani Shankar Aiyar. SHRI MANI SHANKAR AIYAR (MAYILADUTURAI): Mr. Chairman, Sir, I would like to begin by congratulating the hon. Minister of Finance on having presented five Budgets in a row. In doing so, he has equalled the record of Dr. Manmohan Singh. Alas, the comparison ends there! It ends there because The Economic Survey that was presented just before the presentation of the Budget gives us the opportunity of comparing the hon. Finance Minister's four year economic performance with similar slots in the past − the last four years of Dr. Manmohan Singh, the last four years of Shri Rajiv Gandhi and the last four years of Shrimati Indira Gandhi. When one makes this comparison, one finds that growth over the last four years, from 1998 to 2002 has been of the order of 16 per cent. In the last four years of Dr. Manmohan Singh, the economy grew over four years by 23 per cent. In the last four years of Shri Rajiv Gandhi, that is, from 1986 to 1990 also, the economy grew at 23 per cent. In the last four years of Shrimati Indira Gandhi, from 1980 to 1984, the economy grew at 17 per cent, which is one percentage point more than under Shri Yashwant Sinha. The average annual rate of growth in the last two years, that is, 2000 to 2002 has been of the order of 4.5 per cent per annum. This is lower than the annual average rate of growth of the Fifth Plan, the Sixth Plan, the Seventh Plan and the Eighth Plan, what used to be derogatorily called, 'the Hindu rate of growth'. I wonder whether the hon. Minister of Finance is attempting to prove his Hindutva credentials by taking us back to what is called the Hindu rate of growth! When Dr. Manmohan Singh talked of the economy progressing on a trajectory of seven per cent to eight per cent per annum, we were actually averaging seven per cent in the years 1994 to 1997. When in speech after speech the hon. Minister of Finance repeats this mantra of seven per cent to eight per cent annual growth and the Prime Minister goes all the way to the United States to claim that we would be growing at nine per cent per annum while his actual performance is down to half of that at 4.5 per cent per annum one can only say, "You can fool some of the Americans some of the time but you cannot fool all of the Indians all of the time." The Economic Survey tries to gloss over this colossal failure by saying that last year our growth was higher than most others. This, I submit, is a ridiculous cover up. My proof of it lies in a document I hold here, prepared by the longest serving Chief Economic Adviser of Shri Yashwant Sinha's Ministry, Shri Shankar Acharya. It is a very interesting monograph called India's Macroeconomic Management in the 1990s. It contains a table prepared by another Economic Adviser of Shri Yashwant Sinha. Therefore, the credentials are impeccable. This document, which was part of Arvind Virmani's Chintan − occasional paper series shows that over the last 20 years, from 1980 to 2000, ever since Shrimati Indira Gandhi's second coming, our growth rate has been the sixth highest in the world. For 20 years, we have been among the six highest in the world. Shri Yashwant Sinha suddenly discovers it in the year 2001-2002 to explain his pathetic performance in the year under review. Under the benediction of this Minister of Finance, we have sunk in the last two years to well below level number six. It would be much more honest on the part of the Government to accept that not since the Fourth Plan ended in 1974, going back 28 years, has the economy performed as badly as it has in the last two years. Mr. Chairman, Sir, the sectoral performance is even worse. In the Eighties, according to this Economic Survey, foodgrains output rose at 36 per cent giving an annual average rate of growth of 3.6 per cent. In the Nineties, foodgrains output has risen by under half of that figure − just 18 per cent over the entire decade, averaging a mere 1.8 per cent per annum which, tragically, is lower even than our population growth, which is, as per the last diecennial census at 1.93 per cent per annum. Is this the way to sustain our self-sufficiency in foodgrains in the 21st century? Actually, the picture is even worse than that. In the first quinquennium of reforms, 1991-96, foodgrains output rose at 3.5 per cent per annum, a whisker below the rise of the previous decade. But in the second quinquennium that is 1996 − 2001 − I can see that Shri Yashwant Sinha is going to point out that the year 2001 was a particularly a bad year; so let me be kind to him and let us take the next year where your performance is better − even if you take the foodgrains output at the 2001- 2002 figures in preference to the exceptionally bad previous year, one finds that foodgrains growth from 1996 to 2002 averages below two per cent a year, which is barely adequate to keep up with population growth and certainly not enough to improve the desperately poor nutritional standards of the desperately poor people of this country. And yet, the hon. Prime Minister visits Punjab and advises the farmers there to cut down on foodgrains production. If the buffer stocks of the Government are too high, it is not because we are producing too much food. It is because this Government has woefully overpriced foodgrains for consumers who are below the poverty line. We warned the Finance Minister of this in the year 2000 and we were given a complicated story by Shri Shanta Kumar, the Minister of Civil Supplies as to how they calculated that by raising the prices but by doubling the quantities available, the welfare of the poor would go up in comparison to smaller quantities at lower prices. But what has happened? The buffer stock keeps growing because State Governments cannot lift these stocks and the reason why State Governments cannot lift these stocks is that the prices at which foodgrains and other commodities are being made available in ration shops is far too high for the poorer segments of our people. The fault lies entirely in the pricing system that this Government has adopted for foodgrains. Instead of correcting its pricing system , the hon. Prime Minister has, if you will permit the expression, the gall to go to the rice and wheat basket of India, Punjab and tell the farmers there that they are over-producing. Where does the hon. Prime Minister think Punjab lies − in Middle America? It lies in this extremely poor country. It is Punjab that has been saving this country plus, of course, the Cauvery delta. We produce the rice; Punjab produces rice and wheat. I must also tell my friends from the Telugu Desam and acknowledge that the Godavari and Krishna districts have made a humongous contribution. ...(Interruptions) SHRI S. JAIPAL REDDY (MIRYALGUDA): I am sitting by our side. ...(Interruptions) SHRI MANI SHANKAR AIYAR (MAYILADUTURAI): Therefore, I cannot understand how a responsible Prime Minister, whose record in regard to foodgrains production is as disastrous as it has been, can go to Punjab and tell the farmers that 'because I cannot pay your grain, please do not produce any more of it' instead of going to the poor of India and saying that 'because I priced your foodgrains too high, let me lower the foodgrains' prices'.

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