Posted on 09/19/2004 6:35:46 AM PDT by sukhoi-30mki
In New Delhi, Comrades rant and rave against ‘foreign’ consultants, in Kolkata they use them to script success stories
Who’s written Bengal’s roadmap for agro and IT sector? McKinsey. Who’s helped restructure PSUs? Price WaterHouse and UK govt. Who’s helping clean Kolkata Municipal Corporation’s mess? ADB
SUBRATA NAGCHOUDHURY
Posted online: Sunday, September 19, 2004 at 0312 hours IST
KOLKATA, SEPTEMBER 18: When the Planning Commission wanted a report card on the implementation of the Tenth Plan policies, it called in experts — and the Left has been protesting ever since. Messrs McKinsey, World Bank and Asian Development Bank, the three foreign representatives invited for a mid-term review, are too “foreign” for its liking.
While representatives of all four Left parties register strong protests before the Manmohan Singh Government, their comrades in Kolkata have long realised that they do not have a monopoly on economic wisdom.
At the Centre, the Left Front does not even trust McKinsey to appraise different policies and schemes. But in Kolkata, the West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation’s reports proudly detail the role that multinational partners have played in giving the state a boost. The examples are endless, but perhaps none is more telling than the first one:
• The WBIDC Director’s annual report for 2002-2003 details how a certain MNC had been engaged, on the suggestion of the state government, to study agro-business and the IT sector and report on the state’s industrial potential. The study had been completed and the West Bengal Government was reflecting on the recommendations. Among other things, this consultant had stressed the importance of direct investor interaction.
Taking this to heart, the WBIDC started negotiating with agro-business leaders across the country and managed to implement 40 projects in this field, with investment totalling Rs 1,250 crore, in the first nine months of 2003 alone.
The name of the consultant engaged for the study that led to all this? McKinsey and Company.
McKinsey is even helping to market the state to investors in other parts of India.
• One of the West Bengal Government’s biggest successes so far has been its “restructuring” of the state public sector units. The PSUs were divided into different categories and the state eventually decided to close down 16 perpetually sick and bleeding loss-making PSUs. It realised that its money could be better spent elsewhere.
Workers were offered early retirement schemes. Each one who had to leave one of these PSUs was offered a “re-skilling programme” that trained him for other jobs and helped augment the family income along with the compensation package. The consultant behind all this? Price WaterHouse Coopers, a multinational.
So pleased is West Bengal with this programme that the state’s Minister for Commerce and Industries and Public Sector Enterprises, Nirupam Sen, told The Sunday Express that the programme would be extended into its second phase. Incidentally, assistance for this comes from the Department for International Development, a British funding agency.
• Consultants assess and consultants suggest. The Planning Commission has clarified that one is not obliged to listen to these foreign experts, though Buddhadeb Bhattacharya’s government has been doing so.
‘‘A Vision of West Bengal’s Industrial Future’’ was prepared for the government by Arthur D Little. Others working on similar projects include Toyo Corporation, Itochu and Marubeni.
• If consultation seems a bad word to Leftists in Delhi, then nothing stinks like “conditionalities” imposed by external funding agencies like Asian Development Bank (another “outsider” being consulted by the Planning Commission). But it’s a completely different story in Bengal.
Asian Development Bank’s soft loans and a British DFID grant are behind a Rs 1,700 crore project for Kolkata’s renewal. Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) has accepted some of these conditionalities, but the citizens are not complaining.
The conditionalities include putting in place at least 100,000 new water connections by 2006-07; metering all water consumers; reforming taxes; improving property tax collection to 80 per cent by 2004-05 and submitting audited accounts.
Most of these are on target and none seems to have harmed Kolkata.
Some 7,300 industrial and institutional water connections have been metered.
Four consultants have already been engaged for property tax reform. Property tax collection has risen from Rs 181 crore in 2002-03 to Rs 229 crore in 2003-04.
KMC’s account books had a nine-year gap. Thanks to the foreign nudge, this has been made up and audited accounts submitted.
No one is complaining, except the comrades in New Delhi.
L8R
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.