Atal Bihari Vajpayee's five steps that changed India forever

NEW DELHI: Former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee has turned 93 on Monday. Vajpayee was the first non-Congress prime minister to complete full term of five years. But that was not his only achievement, despite more than a dozen unruly and demanding coalition partners.

His bigger achievements were on the economic front. He carried on the spirit of economic reforms introduced by the PV Narsimha Rao government in 1991. When Manmohan Singh took over from Vajpayee in 2004, the economy was in a great shape—the GDP rate was above 8 per cent, inflation was below 4 per cent and foreign exchange reserves were overflowing.

The steps Vajpayee took on the economic front not only gave his party, the BJP, the image of a true economic right-wing hitherto viewed as a nativist party not comfortable with modern trends, but also put India on the road to later economic progress.


Below are five important economic achievements of Vajpayee as the prime minister:

1. Fast-tracking Bharat
Vajpayee's most memorable achievement was the ambitious roads projects he launched—the Goldern Quadrilateral and the Pradhanmantri Gramin Sadak Yojna. The Golden Quadrilateral connected Chennai, Kolkata, Delhi and Mumbai through a network of highways while the Pradhanmantri Gramin Sadak Yojna was planned as a network of all-weather roads for unconnected villages across India. Both the projects proved to be immense success and contributed to India's economic growth majorly.

2. Privatisation
Vajpayee's commitment to reducing the government role in running businesses and industry was reflected in the formation of a separate disinvestment ministry. The most important disinvesments were Bharat Aluminium Company (BALCO) and Hindustan Zinc, Indian Petrochemicals Corporation Limited and VSNL. These initiatives of the Vajpyee government, not free from controversies, set the tone for the government's role in future.

3. Reining in the fiscal profligacy
The Vajpayee government made another beginning by introducing the Fiscal Responsibility Act that aimed to bring down fiscal deficit. It boosted public-sector savings which rose from -0.8% of GDP in FY 2000, to 2.3% in FY 2005.

4. Telecom revolution
The Vajpayee government's New Telecom Policy unleashed the telecom revolution in India by replacing fixed license fees for telecom firms with a revenue-sharing arrangement. Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd was created to separate policy formulation and provision of service. The creation of the Telecom Dispute Settlement Appellate Tribunal also separated the government's regulatory and dispute settlement roles. The government ended the monopoly of Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd’s on international telephony.

5. Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan
It was a social scheme to provide universal access to free elementary education for children aged 6-14 years. Within four years of its launch in 2001, the number of out-of-school children dropped by 60 per cent.