INDIA INC QUEUES UP FOR DARSHAN With Manmohan as FM, Montek is Sardar of Delhi

NEW DELHI 

When the moneybags of Mumbai make a beeline for a nondescript New Delhi building that still goes by the name of Yojana Bhavan, chatter about what could be the grand plan afoot is inevitable. 
This building on the capital's Parliament Street, frequented normally by government types and sundry economists, may seem a relic of a bygone era, and these high-profile visitors are both witnesses and creators of a resurrection of one of its occupants. 
That person is Montek Singh Ahluwalia, the deputy chairman of the country's Planning Commission, who in a span of just a few weeks has gone from being hauled over the coals for approving a spend of . 35 lakh to refurbish his office toilet less than a month ago to being one of the most sought after appointments in Delhi these days. 
On Monday, India's richest man, Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani, came calling and spent an hour with Ahluwalia. On Wednesday, it was the turn of his brother Anil. Between these two highprofile visits, Ahluwalia's office has hosted the likes of Vodafone India's Chairman Analjit Singh, liquor baron and Kingfisher Airlines boss Vijay Mallya, Goenka Group Chairman JP Goenka and many others — a drastic change in the visitor profile to an office that usually hosts state chief ministers and government officials. 
"The roster of industry 
doyens seeking meetings with Montek has got much longer," says one Delhibased lobbyist for a Mumbaibased industrial group, asking not to be identified. "My bosses want to spend more time with Ahluwalia to discuss their concerns in the hope they would be conveyed to the PM." Former bureaucrat colleague and now a Rajya Sabha MP, NK Singh, says it is not surprising Ahluwalia has so many visitors. "Not everyone can meet the PM as he's busy with so many things," he says. A Return to Influence 
"If you don't have a full-time finance minister, then you would share your views and grievances with people whose advice the PM would rely on," says Singh, a former revenue secretary and Planning Commission member, who has worked with and known Ahluwalia for nearly five decades. 
For someone who has been variously labeled as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's sidekick (by the Economist magazine) to being formally anointed as his 'Sherpa' (at G20 meetings), the rise in Ahluwalia's stock now has a lot to do with the recent changes in the stewardship of the economy. The prime minister has taken charge of the finance ministry following the resignation of Pranab Mukherjee, and most adroit watchers of Delhi's power scene have assumed that Ahluwalia's playing a big role in economic policy now is a slam-dunk. It could mark a return to influence for a man at whom Cabinet ministers openly took potshots and civil society activists lambasted as 'heartless' after the Planning Commission set what they felt was an unrealistic poverty line. On both occasions, looking exposed with no higher power to shield him, Ahluwalia, 68, seemed down and somewhat out in the past three years, but today he is clearly up and about. 
Officials working with Ahluwalia play down recent events as anything significant, but the recent spike in visits by industry honchos is being interpreted by many as a comeback story. The flurry of India Inc's meetings with Ahluwalia started barely two days after the PM assumed charge of the finance portfolio. 
"We have greater faith now that putting our point across to Montek is going to help us because there is a feeling he is in a better position to act now," said the senior director of a Mumbai-based large conglomerate, asking not to be identified. The sense of importance is familiar territory for someone who is remembered as one of the posterboys of economic reforms of 1991. Together with boss and mentor Manmohan Singh, then the country's finance minister, Ahluwalia and a team of bureaucrats plotted and executed the dismantling of the licence permit raj and the liberalisation of the Indian economy. Immortalised by their trademark light blue turbans, the senior Singh dreamt up the big changes while Ahluwalia and the other officials worked out the policy nuts and bolts and explained them to the world. 
The 1990s were the zenith of his influence and power, a period that saw him occupy key government positions such as the commerce secretary, the head of the finance ministry's department of economic affairs and finally finance secretary, positions rarely if ever occupied by someone who is not a member of the Indian Administrative Service. 
The Congress party's loss of power saw Ahluwalia, a Rhodes scholar at Oxford University who went on to become one of the youngest division heads at the World Bank in the late 1970s, drift away into seemingly less powerful roles in the government, before he left to join the IMF in Washington in 2001. The return of the Congress-led UPA to power in 2004, this time with his mentor Manmohan Singh as prime minister, saw Ahluwalia return to Delhi and take charge as the head of the Planning Commission. 
During the UPA's first innings, Ahluwalia was in the reckoning for the finance minister's post, talk of which has routinely resurfaced every few years. The man himself has always brushed off all such talk as mere speculation, sometimes even bristling at the suggestion. 
While the UPA's first innings saw him helping the prime minister on economic and strategic priorities of the government, the second innings of the UPA has been less than pleasant. Senior Cabinet minister Kamal Nath called him an 'armchair advisor', he and the commission were roundly criticised for being out of sync with the country's poverty levels and most recently, a stink was raised about him spending millions of rupees on what some said were ultra-luxurious, access-controlled toilets. 
The commission's influence on policy decisions was also perceived to have declined in the three years of UPA-II. The past few years saw the Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council gaining clout and the finance ministry sidelining the commission on several matters. 
"The NAC becoming more active definitely dimmed the influence of the Planning Commission. The commission has primarily dealt with the social sector, but now it was divided between two government organisations that essentially serve as think tanks," said a retired commission official. "Maybe nobody says it out aloud, but it was a known fact that the NAC had more say in social sector policymaking than the commission," he added. 
Already sidelined over social sector issues, severe differences also cropped up between the commission and the Mukherjee-led finance ministry. 
But with Mukherjee's exit and the prime minister beginning to assert control again on economic matters, perhaps for the first time since the Indo-US nuclear deal's conclusion, Ahluwalia's star is once again on the ascendant. 
The setting is not very dissimilar from 1991 — the economy's key indicators are weak, the currency is under pressure and investor sentiment towards India has taken a hit because of contentious policy proposals such as retrospective taxes and the General Anti-Avoidance Rules. 
With a full-time finance minister unlikely to be appointed immediately, Ahluwalia's influence and workload are expected to increase in the weeks ahead. One of the faces of India's economic reform, he is already more visible and more vocal on policy matters. 
Ahluwalia's former colleague NK Singh says the Planning Commission chief faces bigger challenges. "Talking up sentiment and good optics is not enough. The real challenge is to indicate corrective measures to undo the damage and break the paralysis in decisionmaking that has hit all sectors," said Singh.

Anil Ambani, chairman, Reliance Communications, leaves after meeting Montek Singh Ahluwalia, deputy chairman, Planning Commission, in New Delhi on Wednesday. — PTI