Competition panel to examine state policies

NEW DELHI: State governments still harbouring a legacy of the control and licence raj will have some tough questions to answer now.

The Competition Commission of India (CCI) is set to scrutinise the liquor and passenger transport polices of state governments to see if there are any practices that blunt free market competition.

Sources told ET, the commission is also looking at sectors such as pharmaceuticals, telecom, transport in western India, retail food and food grains for anti-competition practices.

Vijay Kelkar, advisor to former FM Jaswant Singh, has been appointed to oversee this analyses outsourced to professional institutes like the Delhi School of Economics and the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore.

The commission, empowered to penalise a corporate or government body for anti-competition practices, will, however, restrict its action to ‘competition advocacy’ till it gets fully operational. At present, the commission is not adjudicating any matter as the issue of appointing a chairman is entangled in litigation at the Supreme Court.

“Many state governments exercise strict controls on liquor and passenger transport business through permits, while controls remain minimum for setting up bigger industries. We are going to look into such practices adversely impacting competition,� said sources.

The challenge now facing the commission is to get fully operational. The appointment of a chairman has been embroiled in a tussle between the executive and the judiciary.

While the government believes adjudication in cases involving complex economic analyses requires an economics expert, the judiciary feels arbitration in such matters is its domain.

The commission in the meanwhile is doing preparatory work. Sources said CCI is also contemplating to establish a ‘Centre for Competition Law and Policy’.

It has set up taskforces in areas like competition advocacy, predatory pricing and determination of costs and research projects.