Former prime minister the late PV Narasimha Rao had a great foresight and the present bears witness to it, President Pranab Mukherjee has said.
Delivering the PV Narasimha Rao memorial lecture here on Monday, Pranab praised PV’s wisdom in choosing Manmohan Singh as his finance minister.
“It was a brilliant decision that could not have come at a more appropriate time,” he said.
Recalling the days when PV Narasimha Rao was prime minister, Pranab Mukherjee said those were the days of financial crisis.
“In an unprecedented and courageous move, Rao departed from the usual policy of selecting a senior politician as the finance minister. Instead, he chose Monmohan Singh, an economic administrator and a well known economist, who had rich experience in policy making as economic affairs secretary and RBI Governor. He was given the task of nursing and strengthening the economy,” Mukherjee said.
He said another great personality trait of Rao was that after entrusting a responsibility to a person, he rarely interfered.
“He gave Manmohan Singh full freedom to deal with the crisis and introduce far-reaching economic reforms. He lent support to Singh and the two together took the nation on a path that had made India an economic power. In fact, Rao himself spearheaded the move for dismantling the licence regime, while holding additional charge of the industry ministry.
Privatisation and disinvestment were encouraged to make public sector enterprises competitive. Chief minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy also addressed the gathering