Taking a critical stand against giving rating to the ease in doing business to states the Communist Party of India (Marxist) dubbed the latest World Bank report “Assessment of State Implementation of Business Reforms” was nothing but interfering in the affairs of governance of Indian states.
CPM’s Andhra Pradesh secretary said the way the Bank sought to give ranks to various states goes against the federal spirit of the Constitution of India.
Madhu disapproved of the World Bank criterion that gave primacy to the implementation of reforms at the State-level and reducing the governments’ control as an important component in determining the ease in doing business.
“The bank’s intentions to interfere in governance is brazen as it it going to be followed by a series of recommendations,” Madhu remarked. The World Bank, which used to confined itself to the project related activities of its client -states, was now trying to influence the states psychologically to speed up reform process, he said.
Referring to World Bank’s country director Omno Ruhl’s preaching that a country remains a difficult place to do business if labor regulations are tough, Madhu said, in tune with this, the World Bank report laid stress on diluting labor laws and lauded this as a welcome step in attracting the new industry or businesses. “The recommendations are tantamount to lifting the controls on workers’ welfare in favor of investors’,” the CPM leader said. According to Madhu, the state of Andhra Pradesh could secure the second position only because it had implemented a majority of the labor reforms recommendations made by World Bank.
He announced that the party would build mass movement against acquisition of land forcibly by state government only to score brownie points with the agencies like World Bank, unmindful of the resistance from people.
