Finance Minister P Chidambaram on Wednesday told a 300-strong group of foreign investors that India remained firmly committed to the reform process first instituted by the then finance minister, now prime minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, in 1991.
Addressing a two-day conference of the Indian Investment Forum at the Waldorf Astoria in New York, Chidambaram said, "Let me tell you categorically that my country remains committed to the process of reform, and that this process will go forward, we will try to go even faster."
The finance minister, significantly, spent a portion of his speech addressing what appeared to be a lesson from the general elections of earlier this year.
The National Democratic Alliance government led by the Bharatiya Janata Party had been routed in the elections, with post-poll analysis saying the result was the expression of dissatisfaction felt by the poor at the selective prosperity that had resulted from liberalisation.
No one in India, Chidambaram told the investors, not even the poor, object to the prosperity of towns and cities thanks to liberalisation. No one in India questions the need for reform and liberalisation, no one questions the need for India to engage with the rest of the world.
What the poor had said with their vote, Chidambaram said, was that they needed the government to address the basic problems of water, electricity, health, education and other basic necessities.
"We will commit public funds to take care of them, especially the farmers," Chidambaram said. "And this will open up a space for industry and investment, and that is where I invite you."
The two-day conference, sponsored jointly by merchant banker Merrill Lynch and the State Bank of India, opened on Wednesday morning with remarks by Merrill Lynch Chairman Stan O'Neil, as well as by Tagraic Fallon, chairman, Euromoney Investors' Forum.
Slated to speak, in course of the day, are the likes of Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani, Tata Group Chairman Ratan Tata and SBI Chairman A K Purwar.