Public Sector

While recognising that the public sector has served the country well in the face of numerous odds and handicaps, the Congress believes that it is time for a strategic redefinition of its role and scope. This reorientation flows from changing economic, social and technological imperatives. The needs of the future are different. The growth of entrepreneurship in the country advances in technology and the pressing demands on public expenditure from more essential sectors like education and health make such a reorientation essential.

The public sector must be concentrated primarily in strategic, security and high-technology areas of atomic energy, defence and space, as also certain areas of infrastructure where private investment will not be forthcoming. It must operate with full commercial and managerial autonomy. The public sector must also concentrate on developing new areas and new industries and bringing them to commercial fruition.

The Disinvestment Commission will be given a wider and more purposive role in the disinvestment, divestment and restructuring process in the public sector. The recommendations made by the Commission on different public enterprises, particularly those relating to strategic sales will be implemented professionally without delays. The revenues raised through disinvestment will be used for designated education, health and social sector programmes and for retiring debt in a progressive manner.

National Development Council and Inter-State Council

The Congress will strengthen bodies like the National Development Council and the Inter-State Council and make their functioning business-like and purposive. Consideration will be given to enshringing this role in the Constitution itself so that the decisions of these bodies become binding on both the Centre and the states.

Urban Growth

The primary responsibility for ensuring healthy urban development must vest in the elected municipalities in consonance with the Constitutional provisions of Part IX A read with the twelfth Schedule.

Towns and cities are magnets of attraction. While all-round development of rural India must and will take place, we can no longer ignore the challenges that are posed by continued urbanisation. Neither is it feasible to control the growth of towns and cities. But there has to be greater planning in the growth and expansion of towns and cities. Haphazard growth in the past has had deleterious social and ecological consequences.

Masterplans for all urban agglomerations will be prepared and the discipline of the masterplans observed in actual practice. Integrated land use development planning with the help of modern satellite-based technologies will also be promoted. Each city and urban habitation will have an operational plan to enable the planning and development of infrastructure. Building bye-laws, zoning regulations and development codes will be modernised to facilitate proper urban planning.

Municipal administration will be revived. The finances of municipal bodies will be put on a sounder footing. However not all urban bodies can become financially self-sustaining. Hence, a National Bank for Urban Development will be set up as an apex-level financing and refinancing body. The focus of this bank will be to finance the growth of long-gestation municipal infrastructure, particularly in those towns and cities that do not have the capacity to become financially self-sustaining. Municipalities and corporations will be encouraged and assisted in floating bond issues. Existing schemes for the development of small and medium towns will be reviewed with a view to making them more effective. Satellite towns will be developed with full infrastructure to ease the pressure on existing metros and big cities.

A special programme for improving sanitation and sewerage systems in cities and towns will be initiated and completed quickly. Infrastructure facilities in growth centres and in urban areas that are also centres of industrial land economic activity will be upgraded and brought up to international standards.

Environment

The Congress believes that it is both desirable and possible to integrate environmental concerns with developmental imperatives. It will ensure that environment and development go hand-in-hand. The Congress will launch a National Movement for Regenerating Village Natural Wealth. (Hamare Gaon, Hamari Sampada) Three important components of this effort will be a National Afforestation Programme, a National Watershed Regeneration Programme and a National Biodiversity Conservation Programme.

The National Afforestation Programme will afforest one-third of India’s land area by the year 2015. The key objective of the National watershed Regeneration Programme will be to improve the local economy of the hill, mountain and plateau regions of India which support a large part of the country’s poor tribal people through integrated land-water-forest management. Both these programmes will be run with the active involvement of the elected panchayats. The National Biodiversity Conservation institutions to conserve the country’s ancient and valuable natural heritage and will ensure that its benefits go back to our people who have been the custodians of this biodiversity for ages.

The Congress will identify those environmental management functions that could be delegated to the states and local bodies. It will ensure that the interests of the workers affected by judicial rulings on polluting and hazardous industries will be fully protected. The Congress is committed to effective relief and rehabilitation measures and resettlements programmes for people affected by development projects, specially the tribals. Previous Congress governments have launched schemes to control the pollution of India’s major rivers. The most prominent of these is the Ganga Action Plan, which has had substantial impact. A National River Cleaning Programme will be launched.

Disaster Management

The Congress will initiate steps to prepare a national disaster management plan for different vulnerable regions of the country. This will be a detailed operational plan of faction at the national, state and local levels and will be continuously updated. The Congress will also enact national disaster management legislation laying down the powers and functional of different agencies entrusted with disaster management responsibilities. The legislation would specify the mandatory operating procedures to be enforced during normal and disaster situations. An independent, Multi-disciplinary national disaster management agency armed with adequate powers and resources will be established. A national mitigation fund with a corpus of Rs 5000 crore will be set up to support all activities at the national and state level to implement long-term measures which will mitigate disasters. The Fund will be administered through a legal corporate body.

The North-East

A High-Power Commission will be immediately set up to examine and suggest solutions to the multidimensional problems and challenges faced by the seven North-Eastern States. The Commission’s recommendations will form a critical part of the Congress’s new approach to the North-East.

The problem of insurgency and militancy in this vital region of the country will be tackled through a variety of means including the speedy all-round development of the region and through mutual understanding and negotiations with the various groups.

Commitments made under various Peace Accords will be fully honoured. The North-East Council will be given an expanded role, larger funds and greater financial powers. Regional offices of various commodity boards will be upgraded and given more administrative and financial powers. The Brahmaputra Board will be activated and studies, demonstration projects and actual schemes will be taken up. Border trade routes will be developed at selected locations along the international border.

Air routes will be opened up further. Guwahati will be functional as a full-fledged international airport and the aerial route between the North-East and East Asia will opened up. Restrictions on domestic and international tourism will be eased with a view to beginning the process of realising the immense potential of the North East for the development of the tourist industry. Autonomous District Councils under the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution will be given wider administrative and financial powers. Illegal infiltration into the region will be effectively checked. Trans-border demographic movements have to be handled and managed sensitively and not made into a political issue. Special efforts will be made to develop forestry, tourism, handicrafts and other employment-oriented industries in the region. The present restrictions on tourism will be carefully reviewed. The natural resources of the region will be utilised in a manner that maximises the benefits to the people of the region.

Narcotics control measures will be tightened and there will be no let-up in the fight against drug cartels.