FDI - For Development of India

If there are persons who cares for India at present, MANMOHAN SINGH will be the first on the list. Everyone knows what he did for country in 1991. Bringing economic reforms and opening Indian market to foreign investors was a big bold step. It might have gone either of ways-establishing a stable economy or a “would be disaster”. But if he didn’t took those reforms it is obvious that country’s economy would be garbage now. So he took a chance of 50% than of certain gutter the economy. It became a big hit that Wikipedia categorized Indian economy into the following periods:

·         Before Independence

·         Between Independence and 1992 reforms

·         Post reforms to present

That explains the impact of reforms on our economy. If we change the year from 1992 to 2012 a similar situation exists now. Only exception is that we are forced to induce policies in past and we are preventing that situation now by adapting now itself. As usual, there are lots of myths and facts about current reforms. But the problem is we are used to take the negative news more than the positive. Even our “black boxes” showcase the same. They are power amplifiers of negative news and resistors of good news (there are exceptions like doordarshan but people rarely call it a TV channel).

As of now, three sets of reforms are induced viz.FDI in retail, hike of fuel prices and FDI in aviation and more are expected to come. Actually I’m expecting this from a quite long time as this is my most romantic part of the reforms.

            In this segment, people believe that small vendors will lose market and giants like Wall-Mart, Carrefour will dictate Indian retail segment. But the reality is completely different. When they allowed FDI in other sectors in past, Indian companies doesn’t lost but became competitors and set some new standards. Now Indian companies are expected for foreign investments in countries like U.K, U.S and Latin America. Though in retail it is not expected as that incredible, there would be high standards induced.

The main beneficiaries of this reform are farming community. I, from an agricultural family, experienced how middlemen exploit both farmers as well as the customers. In other case, if they are allowed, they’ll create a supply chain system which doesn’t exist before. They’ll source directly from farmers at comparatively higher prices and in contrast, end customer also gets the product at cheaper prices that too with better quality. If you are buying something like that, aren’t you happy ? And I’m very sure that farming community will be happy too. The main problem is that many of agriculturists are illiterate and doesn’t know the benefits of it. If they got to know by some means, damn Mamata and other politicians-it would be a completely different story.

Moreover, our country didn’t face a mass protest from farmers yet. And politicians should be happy that the situation is better like this. If it does happen, it’s nothing but chaos. I still can’t understand the logic of politicians. They are opposing it on the grounds of relatively richer and exploiting middlemen. But not viewing in perspective of a farmer. You can play only as long as he keeps silent. If politicians mess with backbone of our country, all the bones of them will go fractured.

Government also formulated some rules like investing 50% of capital in back end infrastructure like developing warehouses and cold storage. They will greatly reduce the post harvesting losses by farming community. And 30% of sourcing should be done from SME’s. They’ll indirectly strengthen the economy as SME's contribute a major stake in our economy. It does also increases healthy competition among themselves, providing better products at relatively cheaper prices. Introduction of FDI in retail reduces the stages from producer to customer to a meager two to three which is really helpful to both the parties. And our beloved didi is opposing to this.

However, there are some disadvantages too like effectiveness of implementation etc, but we’ll not throw it out on those basis. It’s time we need to look ourselves forward for a better future, at least by not supporting those who stand as speed breakers for our country’s development.