Amid corporate espionage controversy, industry body ASSOCHAM wants lobbying to be recognised

Criticizing the government over maintaining secrecy for its decision making policies, industry body ASSOCHAM said that the government should introduce complete transparency in its process of decision-making.

The chamber made the statement in wake of the latest case of corporate espionage, wherein documents with sensitive information related to Coal and Oil and gas ministries among others, were leaked. The documents leaked also contained inputs of Finance Minister Arun Jaitley’s budget speech. The chamber believed that there has been a hue-and-cry over a non-issue as this.

“In any case, one fails to understand what all this fuss is about? After all, any Indian citizen can rightfully access any government information or even document through a legal way by the Right to Information Act. The piles of documents which are being hyped up as the corporate espionage can be sought from any government department using RTI, with the exception of the national security matters,” said D S Rawat, general secretary of ASSOCHAM.

He further questioned the rationale behind the government’s decision to maintain secrecy over matter, which had a bearing on India Inc. The chamber suggested that the Centre must give the corporate an opportunity to present their views and arguments over a particular policy, by putting them on the websites as draft.

“There will always be conflicting views between two competing corporate. Both the views have to be respected, debated before a decision is taken. Even after a decision is taken, the public and the businesses have a right to be told as to why a particular line of decision was taken and the other rejected. Prime Minister Narendra Modi's passionate slogan of ‘Minimum Government and Maximum Governance’ should be implemented in a letter and spirit”, he added.

Strongly defending the companies involved in the controversy, the chamber said that India needs to change its way of functioning and not continue with the practices of sixties and seventies era.

The association also unabashedly suggested that lobbying should be recognized as legal and companies should be allowed to lobby well to convince the decision making authorities of their stand. “Lobbying should no more be considered as a dirty word,” asserted Rawat.

Not sparing the Delhi Police as well, the chamber strongly criticized the police force for painting a negative image of India Inc. "Besides, the Police should also refrain from painting the entire corporate world with the brush of espionage. “If we have to take the country forward and win global investors, this kind of so-called espionage stories will not do us good. What we need is strong regulators, open decision making. Even the Budget making should also be done in a transparent manner and this practice of changing and altering tax slabs, rates every year should be stopped. There should be long-term policies with clear vision with the fair and transparent rules of the game,” stated Rawat.