PM Manmohan Singh seems unhappy with inputs for policy making

NEW DELHI: The Prime Minister appears to be dissatisfied with the intellectual inputs he has lately been getting for policy making.

He said so to a group of CPM MPs who met him on Monday to discuss an issue related to Kerala. "I am not getting quality inputs in UPA-II," an MP who was part of the CPM delegation quoted the PM as saying.

The PM's remark came when CPM leader Sitaram Yechury cautioned him against the need to follow neo-liberal prescriptions for the economy in the light of the fear of a second global slowdown. According to one member of the delegation, Yechury spoke of the possibility of foreign capital rushing in now that the investment opportunities in the West are fast disappearing, and asked the government to raise the ramparts against hot money.

The suggestions spurred the PM to lament that he was not getting sound inputs for policy making.

However, CPM sources did not see the remarks as reflecting the recognition in the govrnment of the need for a course correction insofar as Congress's ties with CPM are concerned. "It was a casual conversation, and he was being nice to his visitors," said CPM sources.

Marxists and Left intelligentsia have blamed government's liberal economic policies for the prospect of growth slowdown, inflation and corruption. But the diagnosis has been rejected by the government which is planning to file an affidavit in the Supreme Court to protest against a recent verdict of the apex court which blamed economic liberalization for many of the troubles -- from rising economic disparity to naxalism to corruption - the country faces.