Articles by Arun Sinha


cant point he made in this context was that till now 'demand management' was being resorted to to maintain price stability, but now it was proposed to improve the supply position of critical commodities such as edible oils and cotton. Import of these commodities had been arranged, he said. He had to project such a shift in policy simply because he had to reckon with the spate of election concessions which could not be justified in terms of conventional demand management. But reliance on selective imports does not signify a break with the new monetary strategy which has gained ascendancy in official policy. It is only a variant of it in the prevailing political and economic conditions. The most important feature of economic management and policy still is the low priority given to allocation of resources for development. The Plan outlay for the coming year, for instance, provides for only Rs 900 crores as its external exchange component. The swelling foreign exchange reserves are evidently not going to be committed to planned growth because they may be needed to improve the supply of articles of current consumption as a price stabilisation measure.

forms or for enforcing the ceiling on landholdings and then to conveniently forget about these matters? Can reliance be placed on sophisticated fiscal and monetary instruments to clear the path for growth even as the investment and production pattern is left to market forces to determine? Above all, in the context of the budget- making exercises for the next financial year, the question that has arisen is whether even conventional tax measures for raising resources for investment in the public sector can be dispensed with. The finance minister's sharp reaction to pleas for more fiscal concessions to the private corporate sector is significant in this context. This is no indication of the fiscal measures that he will actually present in his budget for the next year, since it is known that the initiative of the finance ministry in budget-making is not as complete as it is generally believed to be and forces and lobbies are at work now which exercise much greater influence on decision-making than was the case before the Emergency. But the reactions and the public utterances of the finance minister indicate the kind of problems that have to be reckoned with and cast doubts about the efficacy of the basic philosophy which had inspired last year's budget proposals.

debt contracts for sheer survival which denied them their basic human rights of free movement and offering their labour to the highest bidder.
One aspect of bonded labour which has remained largely untouched upon in most debates on the question is its inter-state character. Early in 1976, a group or' bonded labourers contacted in Rajasthan were found to be working on construction sites in New Delhi. The 'dadan' labourers of Orissa have been reported to be working in states as far apart as Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Manipur, Assam, Tripura, Punjab, UP, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar and West Bengali Most of the recipient states happen to be the ones that have out- BIHAR right denied the ' existence of any bonded labourers within their territory.

succeeded In securing a higher bonus. In a like manner, a united token strike led by CITU, AITUC and INTUC was observed in the Poddar Factory of Garden Reach area on September 21. In the Durgapur industrial complex there was a widespread agitation for bonus. In Durgapur Steel, the management refused to pay bonus and the workers protested against this by submitting a mass petition signed by 16,000 workers. In Sankey Wheels, a united token strike was observed and a settlement was reached at the intervention of the state labour minister. In Machinery Manufacturing Corporation at Durgapur an agreement signed by INTUC for bonus was rejected by the mass of workers who have been carrying on an agitation. Similar is the case in Braithwaitc.

October 9, 1976 The mess in the steel industry, arising out of the large accumulation of unsold stocks and the tremendous drain through subsidised export, would soon have its impact on the steel industry and on the country. The government and the SAIL authorities may be compelled to take measures which would inevitably hit steel workers, their earnings and employment. In TISCO about 1,000 workers were retrenched some time back. This may be an indication of what is to come in the steel industry.