Hits and misses

Kudos to Rakesh Mohan for so succinctly depicting the various decisions of the Vajpayee government in the three parts series (September 10-12). Various facets of decisions and enactments of myriad legislations without the pulls and pressures of coalition partners and without scandals or any wrongdoing is a lesson to be followed by any coalition government in the future. Needless to say that all this culminated into the phrase “India Shining” which got reflected in the initial years of the UPA-I government.

There are many other path-breaking decisions taken by the Vajpayee government. For instance, the introduction of the new pension scheme for government employees and the discontinuation of pension for government employees joining after 2004 that will have a long-term positive repercussion on the economy. All developed economies of the world are facing economic problems due to an aging population. It was truly a visionary decision. Second, the Securitisation and Reconstruction of Financial Assets and Enforcement of Security Interest Act, 2002, could make the public and private sector lenders' recovery of loans/ mortgaged assets easily possible. And finally, scrapping of the US 64 Scheme of the Unit Trust of India to cut the further losses. This was probably the biggest scam by a government institution and proved to be the nemesis of the Vajpayee government and resulted in the defeat of NDA-1 in 2004. Naresh Saxena New Delhi