WEST BENGAL-Substituting Reform for Revolution

significant part in determining cost's or quality of production in these Industries But the list is proposed to be revised as and when necessary and there is no danger of it being enfold with too much strictness, Also there is to be no phasing out of the existing large-scale industries in the reserved area as was demanded in the Janata party's resolution on economic policy, The (joint, however, is that reservation of more and more industries for the small-scale' sector has beeen of no particular help in the past to achieve the objectives in view. The definition of small-scale industry remains unchanged. A unit will be classified in the small-scale sector if it has a specified level of capital outlay at present fixed at Rs 15 lakhs - regardless of what it produces and how. No consideration has been given to the fact that concessions to the small-scale units, either by way of credit or supply of inputs, under the prevailing conditions and arrangements, does not help to change either the pattern of production or consumption and does not help to adjust prices and costs which will serve priority requirements. On the contrary, it is well established that the small-scale sector, as now defined and regulated is an area of sweated labour and la used by the large-scale sector to divert material and financial resources towards non-priority areas and lines of activity, Considerable concern has been expressed in some circles about the stipulation in the new industrial policy statement that large-scale enterprises will have to generate their own resources for expansion and modernisation rather than depend too much on public financial institutions. But it is proposed to make adjustments in the pricing of industrial products to ensure an adequate rate of return on capital to facilitate the generation of internal resources for reinvestment. The question is how far this will be done in practice. The gov- eminent has been reluctant to do that even in the case of public sector enterprises as well as for private sector industries in the name of controlling prices. To talk of making the industry capable of generating surpluses of its own and then to work out schemes for large-scale pumping in of resources from the public financial institutions to the so-called sick industries shows how practice will not necessarily square with precept WEST BENGAL Substituting Reform for Revolution Ajit Roy THE CPI(M)-Ied Left Front government in West Bengal has Just completed six months in office. By any prevailing standards of measurement, its performance during this period has been quite creditable. Most of the political prisoners, some of whom had been behind bars for about a decade