The new economic policy - its impact on the common man?

Globalization and India's willingness to join GATT(General Agreement for Tariff and Trade) few years ago has seen Indian economy grown to manifold but at the same time it had an adverse effect on our fellow manufacturers. We would see the advantages forts and then come to the impact.

World Bank has predicted that the Global economy will grow at a rate of 2.5% from next year after it was massively affected by US Sub Prime Mortgage Crisis and it has predicted that India and China would be the major driving factors towards it. Since most of the countries have already reached the saturation point in various fields (like automobiles, mining, raw materials etc) India and China were the hottest destinations for the other countries since the purchasing power of our people has gone up because of employment opportunities. We had seen many Indian companies taking over foreign companies like Corus, Jaguar and Land Rover, Whyte & Mackay, Tetley to name a few which has made the Indian Flags to fly high in various countries across the globe.

Now coming to the topic - Had it had an effect on the common man..??

I would say YES because since we have opened up our door for foreign companies, they started pouring in their products at cheaper price because they had the Expertise with them already and since they wanted to develop here, they also started giving discounts to their products which seems attractive but at the same time has suppressed the local traders here. You might have noticed in few sectors, some well known companies have gone bust. For example, Subiksha was affected by this.

MTR was sold to a foreign company and so as Nilgiris which was taken over by a foreign company as well. We also see our Indian companies like Parle, Cholayil (makers of Medmix) KavinCare (Chick Shampoo manufacturers) facing tough contest from multinational giants like Unilever and P&G. Though the competition is good for a market like India and people getting good price at the moment, one cannot deny the fact that it would slowly eradicate our manufacturers leaving the entire control to foreign companies Which might then lead to Predatory pricing? We have also noticed soft drinks like Gold Spot, Limca, Thums Up and Mapillai Vinayagar(Local drink in Madurai) having lost their identity and fame. We also come across Government's idea of selling some of its stake in public sector companies which involves in mining and other in other fields in 0rder to get funds to bail out the Government expenditure though these companies were running in profits and one of the Navaratna Company in India. It would slowly see us witnessing the rise in the price of essentials like electricity, communication etc to name a few. Many of us would have also noticed our neighborhood store keepers being vanished because of tough competition from these companies (For E.g. Total, Bharti Wal-Mart which is yet to come into this picture).

We can overcome this. Our companies need to be storing, focused more on customer service and quality and with the help and support of Government we can overcome this and after all when Indian companies can take over well known and established foreign co's this is also possible.

By

S. Sarth Babu