A meeting with the ace reformer

I unabashedly drop the name of Dr Manmohan Singh, who found time for a memorable one-on-one meeting with me, then a lowly official of a state government. The year was 1992, the state was Punjab. Following a decade of terrorism, during which the state was mainly under the President’s rule, an elected government headed by Beant Singh assumed office. The new government faced two critical challenges: one, law and order had to be restored; two, the state was facing a financial crisis, having landed in a debt trap. The situation was so precarious that the state government did not have resources to meet its day-to-day expenditure.

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I was surprised that the Chief Minister appointed me as Finance Secretary. Having little experience of hardcore finance, I took an unprecedented decision to write a letter to then Union Finance Minister Dr Manmohan Singh, pleading that he may educate me in my new assignment. At that time, the brilliant Finance Minister had initiated momentous reforms to liberalise the economic policy, removed stifling bureaucratic controls and saved the country from outright bankruptcy. Thanks to the visible success of the bold measures, Dr Singh was hailed internationally as an ace reformer. To my astonishment, within a week of my SOS, he summoned me to his office in North Block of the Central Secretariat.

Where in the world, I reasoned, would I find a better guide than the great Doctor of economics in setting the finances of the state in order? I little realised that in approaching the Finance Minister directly, I had breached official protocol. Wearing his trademark starched white khadi and light-blue turban, and punctual to the minute, Dr Singh received me warmly, even welcoming my unusual enterprise. His manner was that of a learned Oxbridge don, suave and measured in his words.

As I began my litany of financial woes, he cut me short and introduced me to a dapper South Indian academician, Prof Raja J Chelliah, Chairman of the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy (NIPFP). My meeting had lasted just 20 minutes. The taciturn Dr Singh assured me that the NIPFP would provide consultancy on financial reform free of cost.

On Dr Singh’s direction, the NIPFP’s experts promptly travelled to Punjab and submitted a comprehensive report within months. When then CM Beant Singh asked for his comments, Dr Singh responded with a one-liner: “Punjab is an economically progressive state, but financially backward.” It meant that while the people of Punjab were enterprising, the government had let them down. The strategy demanded discipline and perseverance. Sadly, the government implemented just a fraction of Dr Singh’s recommendations. With the assassination of Beant Singh, the reform package lost steam. The fault lay with successive state governments, which dared not swallow a bitter pill.