To counter the impact of various sanctions after the nuclear tests, Vajpayee directed officials to start clearing projects quickly, to get foreign industry to start lobbying against the sanctions with their governments. After all, if the billion dollar Air India aircraft deal was cleared, the argument ran, Boeing would put pressure on the US authorities to ensure its prospects weren't jeopardised. And if the US government didn't listen to Boeing, surely it would listen to the CMS' and Cogentrixes of the world, once their power projects were given the final go-ahead.

While it's too early to say if the US government is listening or not, one lot that clearly isn't listening too well is Vajpayee's colleagues themselves. So they'vecome out with policies/statements almost designed to ensure that foreign corporates also turn against India. And since the Prime Minister can't possibly monitor all the intricacies of each project, how's he really to know who is at fault -- his officials, or the foreign promoters?

The best example of this, of course, is the Government-Suzuki fight at Maruti Udyog. With several legal luminaries arguing that the government's case -- on its right to appoint R.S.S.L.N. Bhaskarudu without Suzuki's concurrence was a weak one, among a host of others -- and the hearing at the arbitration court coming up soon, the government was negotiating a settlement with Suzuki. And then, buoyed by the anti-Japan sentiment following its sanctions, the industry ministry decided to play hardball.

These are our final terms, accept them and withdraw the arbitration case, or else, they told the Japanese. Since this is not the first time Suzuki has been given such promises -- few of which have been fulfilled -- how could theypossibly withdraw their arbitration unilaterally? More so, when this is their real trump card. This is where the element of deceiving the Prime Minister comes in. He would probably have been told by his ministry that the Japanese are acting tough and are threatening the government. That, of course, is something no self-respecting Prime Minister can allow.

Similarly, no matter what the ministry of power may have told the Prime Minister, its announcements on giving counter-guarantees for three fast-track power projects, are unlikely to give a fillip to foreign investment. The reason is simple. The drastic manner in which the government has curtailed the scope of these counter-guarantees has made most of them quite meaningless. In the event, promoters of these projects will find it difficult to get financiers to finance these projects, and will have to find new methods to make their projects bankable.

In fact, the manner in which this has been done is, in many ways, tantamount to breach of faith, with thegovernment going back on its original promise of the scope of these counter-guarantees. With the government no longer guaranteeing payments, in case the state electricity boards don't make them, for example, these producers will now have to look for new ways to secure payments from the SEBs.

One way is to get the SEBs to open escrow accounts -- under this, the SEB will deposit all tariffs collected in a bank account and instruct the bank that the power company is to be paid first, before anyone else. Apart from the fact that this now means a whole new set of negotiations and paperwork, this still won't take care of the entire problem. Under the new framework, for example, repayment of domestic debt is not going to be guaranteed. In which case, these power producers will find it difficult to get domestic financial institutions to lend them money.

The most interesting, of course, is the way the power ministry has chosen to package its change of stance: `The earlier proposal kept getting shunted from oneministry to another, so nothing got done.' In other words, be grateful that we managed to come up with this formula which has some chance of working! That, of course, is such humbug that it isn't even funny. After all, who is to blame for the fact that the government couldn't get its different ministries to clear the counter-guarantees in their original form? Surely it can't be the private sector companies? To top it all, urban affairs minister Ram Jethmalani is believed to have ordered an inquiry into how the Gujral government gave a clearance to the Radisson hotel project in the Capital, despite the fact that the law ministry had opined in favour of this after studying all the pros and cons. The project, incidentally, was tossed around for close to three years between various government departments with organisations such as the Delhi Development Authority changing their stance on the project several times.

With so many of his colleagues doing their best to prevent projects from taking off, and othersshooting their mouths off -- ever heard of a parliamentary affairs minister holding forth on a war? -- Vajpayee's best option is to try a new approach to get the US to withdraw sanctions against India. In keeping with the power ministry's you-should-be-grateful approach, he needs to say, "You ought to be grateful for what I've done -- my chaps wanted to use the bomb on both Pakistan and China!"