Advani advocates balancing growth with equity

New Delhi, Jun 26 (UNI) Having learnt the lessons of 'India Shining' campaign of the NDA, senior BJP leader L K Advani today cautioned the BJP not to be taken in by the UPA government's claims that the country had achieved a nine per cent growth rate.

Addressing the BJP National Executive, Mr Advani, the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha said when Finance Minister P Chidambaram proudly advertises that the country had attained nine per cent growth, it was only 'technically true' but materially not correct as the growth was not across all geographical and demographic segments. "A small section of India may be growing at 20 per cent or more but most of India is still stuck in low digits if at all there was any growth", he said referring to plight of farmers who were commiting suicides in alarming numbers.

India's economic policy harped on single word -- ''growth'' for the last one and a half decade and it was a commendable national objective giving the depressing economic circumstances prevailing when P V Narasimha Rao took over as the Prime Minister. ''Its merits were confirmed by successive Prime Ministers and Finance Ministers who all followed the same prescription irrespective of their tenures,'' he said.

''Now the time has proved that the policy born with good intentions can't be sustained by good intentions alone. Now the country has to look for 'trickle down' effect on the have nots who were waiting for the trickle to happen. This is generating serious levels of conflict we are witnessing today", he said, in an without indirect reference to the rise in naxal violence.

"There is a need to have a relook at the policy. If Nandigram can't wake us up, nothing else will and the answer has to be more nuanced than mere expression of pro or anti Special Economic Zone policy", hMr Advani noted, adding that the SEZs can't work smoothly unless they were part of a much larger framework in which the concerns of the dispossed were addressed.

He said while economic progress left someone dispossessed, the State cannot afford to ignore the plight of these unfortunate masses.

'If you do this, it is a recipe for inequity and violence", he cautioned.

UNI