Growth, Internal Security UPA Govt’s Top Priorities: President

In first address to joint sitting of both houses of Parliament after Lok Sabha elections, President Pratibha Patil listed infrastructural and financial growth, and internal security as key priorities in UPA government’s broad agenda for the next five years.

“Our immediate priority must be to focus on management of the economy that will counter the effect of the global slowdown by a combination of sectoral and macro-level policies,” Patil said during her address to a joint session of Parliament.

“My government will focus attention on sectors that are adversely affected – especially small and medium enterprises, exports, textiles, commercial vehicles, infrastructure and housing,” she said.

President said that government is determined to do away with bottlenecks and delays in implementation of infrastructural projects, in particular belonging to railways, power, highways, ports, airports and telecom sectors.

Patil ruled out privatisation of state-run enterprises, but said that plan would be formulated for public at large which helps them have a stake in these enterprises and to list them on stock exchanges.

“Our fellow citizens have every right to own part of the shares of public sector companies while the government retains majority shareholding and control,” she said, adding the state will continue to hold 51 percent or higher control.

On internal security front, she said that zero tolerance towards terrorism and stern measures to handle both insurgency and Left-wing extremism are some of the tasks before Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s government as it puts in place a plan to strengthen internal security.

“The government has already made a detailed plan to address internal security challenges to be implemented in a time-bound manner,” Patil said.

Multi-agency centre for intelligence sharing and National Investigation Agency are some of the areas that have already been activated for handling of terror related offences.

“A national counter-terrorism centre will be established to take pro-active anti-terrorism measures. Special forces and quick response teams will be raised and deployed in vulnerable areas,” Patil said.