Head of National White Paper Drafting Committee and Honorary Fellow of Center for Policy Dialogue (CPD). Debapriya Bhattacharya said, the arbitrary economy was created to institutionalize the lawless economy during the previous government. He said that the root of the country's economic crisis was the biased mega project based on political considerations. The implementation of which has been mega stolen.
He said these things at the Economic Reporters Forum (ERF) recommendation meeting to the white paper drafting committee at the Planning Commission on Thursday (October 31).
Dr. Debapriya Bhattacharya said, 'More than the economic development has been smuggled abroad. Against this a narrative of development was created. In order to institutionalize this lawless economy, authoritarian politics was institutionalized. It has created an opportunity to break the vicious cycle of lawlessness.'
He said, 'Unless there is political reform, there will be obstacles in the way of our transparency, accountability, efficiency and good governance. As we stand now, the political situation in the future will determine how much relief the economic situation gives them. That is, the scope, continuity and speed of these reforms will be determined by the government – how confident the current economy is and how comfortable the people are.
He further said, 'At the moment various reform programs are going on. We are observing various positive reform measures and activities from the government. At the same time some restrictions are coming in political or institutional fields. Remember, when we impose a restriction on individual policies or groups, it has economic implications. In that case, we create a way to narrow their political role as well as their economic role. Therefore, we have to keep these things in our consideration. The white paper preparation committee is working closely monitoring these issues.
In the meeting, EFR journalist leaders presented various reform recommendations to the Economic White Paper Drafting Committee. Requested the committee to highlight the huge irregularities in infrastructure development and procurement of equipment, especially in the health sector.
