The Minister of
Information and Broadcasting, Shri Ravi Shankar Prasad has said
that the reforms are in the interest of the people and not elitist.
He said, there is a need to reform domestically and internally.
The reforms have already created lakhs of jobs and the boost
to the infrastructure sector in the Union Budget-2003 would
have a cascading effect to generate large-scale employment.
Presiding over
a discussion on Budget 2003, organized by the Bhartiya Vitta
Salahkar Samiti, here last evening, Shri Prasad said that the
people at large need to be educated about the import of the
reforms so that their misgivings are removed. He said, the priorities
listed in the budget by the Finance Minister in which he has
given stress on education, health, irrigation, dairy, horticulture
and agriculture, reflect the human face of the reforms.
Referring to the
health of the economy, Shri Prasad said that despite the worldwide
recession and the worst droughts, the economy has absorbed the
adverse effects. The foreign exchange reserves of the country
are higher ever than the US and Europe. This has helped the
country to prematurely liquidate the external debts worth over
two billion US dollars.
The Minister expressed
happiness over the excise duty exemption given to the pre-recorded
CDs and said that this would not only help check the music piracy
but also revive the music industry whose revenues dipped down
to Rs. 900 crores from Rs. 1500 crores.
