Reforms should reflect in socio-economic devpt: Yashwant

Coimbatore, Feb 23 (UNI) Former Finance Minister and senior BJP leader Yashwant Sinha today said economic reforms being implemented should reflect in the socio-economic development so as to benefit the common man.

Delivering the keynote address at 'Vasantham 2008,' a three-day district-level conference of Rotary Clubs held at a private engineering college near here, he observed that economic reforms ushered in the 90s had benefited only selected segments of society and ignored the common man.

When the country faced a severe economic crisis in the 90s, the then BJP government decided to reform the economic policies. At that time Forex reserve was hardly sufficient to sustain imports for 15 days.

Though the reforms implemented in the 90s boosted the economic and industrial growth with the GDP touching a growth rate of 8.5 per cent, there was opposition to the economic reforms from various quarters in the country, he said.

Strikes and bandhs were organised to oppose the reforms. As such the often-asked question was whether the country should go for double-digit growth rate, he said and added that lopsided implementation of the economic reforms had resulted in disparities between the haves and the have-nots.

The disparity was on the rise, he said adding that there was an overall decline in development in various spheres of economy such as agriculture.

Mr Sinha pointed out that the industrial development of the country had come down to nine per cent during the first nine months of this year compared to 11.5 per cent during the corresponding period last fiscal.

While emphasizing that the economic reforms should reflect in the lives of one and all, he underlined that the spirit of competition was necessary to ensure quality of the products and their competitive price in the market.

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