Shri Krishna Chandra Haider (Durgapur) : After three or four months you will know.
Shri Yashwantrao Chavan : These are prophesies of doom. It is their firm conviction that prices must rise. Who can convince them?
Shri Chitta Basu : Taxation without tears! But he said, tears are also there.
Shri Yashwantrao Chavan : Tears are sometimes of good type and sometimes not of a desirable type. If at all there are tears, they are tears of joy.
I was trying to say, what are the criteria on the basis of which we can judge a budget. I have mentioned a few. There can be further additions to that list. If we try to judge him on this line, I must say that he has done certainly very commendable work. Take the provisions for vital sectors of the economy. I do not want to quote further statistics, because that makes any speech more complicated. Take the important area of energy, for example. Today the world over, when the question of the economy of any nation is discussed, the question of energy is considered to be more important. What has be done for energy. He has increased the investment by 90 percent of what was done last year. It is an unprecedented provision, particularly for the energy area. Energy is a very very important thing for India. In the third world, every country is suffering from this problem of energy and the burden of petro-dollars, Euro-dollars and rising prices of oil either from the Gulf countries for what ever other countries may be in the market in this particular matter. Therefore, any genuine nationalist, anybody who is patriotic, will always come forward and say that in the coming decade I am again using a long term word; in the coming two or three years, we must make such a progress that we will not be required to go before the IMF for any loan for any other purpose.
Shri Sunil Maitra : What about the thirty years?
Shri Yashwantrao Chavan : You do not know about it. Thirty years such a provision was not with the IMF also, about taking such a loan. You do not know that. I will tell you about the fight that we have to put up for this.
Normally we used to get loans from the World Bank. But IMF is very conservation institution. Any moneylender is always conservative. Whether he is from the western side or the eastern side. There is not much difference. We have to plead for the things. I happened to be the representative of our country to speak on the floor of the Committee of Twenty. Prof. Dandavate then always wanted to discuss that issue here as to what monetary reforms we were discussing there. I always wanted an opportunity to discuss it here. Unfortunately, Sir, no help came from your side. We could not discuss it. The country would have known exactly what positions that we were taking on those issues at that time. This was one of the issues. Normally IMF was inclined to give loans under its own regulations. They call it by different names in terms of the percentage of our contribution to the IMF. That was the basic formula of the IMF we were telling them that “The third world needs a little more understanding from you, rich countries, there.” We were telling them that we needed a proper transfer of resources from them. The manner in which the whole thing was going on this had to be done. Therefore, we were pleading for this extra facility.
Normally we used to get loans from the World Bank. But IMF is very conservation institution. Any moneylender is always conservative. Whether he is from the western side or the eastern side. There is not much difference. We have to plead for the things. I happened to be the representative of our country to speak on the floor of the Committee of Twenty. Prof. Dandavate then always wanted to discuss that issue here as to what monetary reforms we were discussing there. I always wanted an opportunity to discuss it here. Unfortunately, Sir, no help came from your side. We could not discuss it. The country would have known exactly what positions that we were taking on those issues at that time. This was one of the issues. Normally IMF was inclined to give loans under its own regulations. They call it by different names in terms of the percentage of our contribution to the IMF. That was the basic formula of the IMF we were telling them that “The third world needs a little more understanding from you, rich countries, there.” We were telling them that we needed a proper transfer of resources from them. The manner in which the whole thing was going on this had to be done. Therefore, we were pleading for this extra facility.
