The Steel Authority of India has revived an old Indian bugbear: the import lobby.

Accused of supplying substandard rail-track material SAIL, apparently a benchmark for PSUs trying to adapt to a more open economic environment, has cited the ``import lobby'' in giving it a bad name.

This is a fine inversion. ``Public sector monopoly'' or ``public sector lobby'' are not expressions used for their own sake. There is an intricate web of policies and misguided behaviour to prove that such a lobby is only too real. It implies monopolies which are profitable by virtue of no fair competition being allowed against them, which charge arbitrary prices for substandard goods or services.

They develop a vested interest in keeping out competition which would force them to shape up or ship out, corner state subsidies and lobby fiercely to maintain their privileged position. Hence the public sector ``lobby''. What do import ``lobbies'' do? They ask for imports to be freed because these are either cheaper or better or simply not available domestically. They are not a group mounting a concerted campaign a pre-requisite, surely, for a lobby? But supplicate individually before a government used to thinking of itself as maai-baap. The fact that imports are not, in fact, allowed has nothing to do with importers' inefficiencies, unlike in the case of the public sector lobby.

SAIL has some cheek to scornfully call its detractors import lobbies.Not that in fairness to it SAIL is alone. Its language is only symptomatic of the cliche that old habits die hard. Policy liberalisation does not equal an open mindset. There are other Indian expressions which neither belong in the English lexicon nor will be recognised by nationals other than Indian. They exist to remind Indians that the control mentality is alive and well.

``Sick'' industry and ``exit'' policy are two more of these. Although very apt expressions, they nevertheless betray the special pain that Indians and their governments feel for industrial inefficiency and for organised labour. Thus ``sick'' industry naturally requires more infusions of that nourishing article, the state subsidy. Likewise, an exit policy sums up so much better the refined Indian concern for protecting labour than the crude American ``hire-and-fire'' bluster. So what if this applies to the 8 per cent of the unionised workforce?

It is lucky for the detractors of the import lobby SAIL and others who sail alongside that anachronisms abound in India's apparently liberalised economy. India's precious foreign reserves are another peculiar obsession.

No matter that India is sitting on a foot-high, and growing, pile of these. The country, it seems, is still faced with an impending balance of payments crisis. Never mind that foreign reserves have, in a matter of months, bounded from $25 billion to $29 billion. Far be it from India to use them to ease imports and make consumers' lives easier. Never mind that too-high reserves push up the rupee or make exports uncompetitive, and generally represent poor utilisation of available resources. Treason it is to talk of touching this symbol of national pride. So much for the new economic mindset.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.