By IANS
Kolkata : US Treasury Secretary Henry M Paulson, Jr. said Sunday India should work out its own political mechanism to make the Indo-US civil nuclear deal quickly operational.
“We want the nuclear deal to move as quickly as possible. This is a very important deal,” Paulson, who is a key member of the George Bush cabinet, told reporters at a rural economic empowerment programmed on the outskirts of Kolkata.
“It (the civil nuclear deal) would help India to meet its energy needs,” Paulson said while acknowledging that India has to resolve its own political differences over the issue.
“India has to work out its own mechanism. You all have to work through your own internal political decision. That’s up to India,” he said.
Paulson said the nuclear deal, which is opposed by the communists who shore up the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government at the centre, was important for India’s economic growth, energy security and environmental protection efforts.
Paulson’s four-day trip to India began Saturday with West Bengal where he met the state’s reformist Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya at state secretariat Writers’ Buildings to discuss investment and the nuclear deal. He will travel to Mumbai and New Delhi for economic conferences and meet Finance Minister P. Chidambaram and the heads of the country’s central bank and securities regulator.
Asked if his meeting with a communist chief minister (Bhattacharya) was to soften the communists’ resistance to the nuclear deal, Paulson said: “I have heard a lot about him. He is a great reformer. So I have come to meet him.”
On Sunday morning, Paulson met the recipients of smart cards under a private sector initiative at Amtala in South 24 Parganas district on the outskirts of Kolkata to highlight the importance of financial inclusion and extending benefits of financial services directly to the Indian people.
“I just participated in a private sector initiative to bring financial service tools to people in rural India. I commend Financial Network and Operations (FINO), ICICI Bank and Grameen Sanchar Society (GRASSO) for their valuable work in bringing financial service tools to people, enabling them to join the economic mainstream,” he said.
“Technology plays an important role here and we saw that first-hand today (Sunday),” Paulson said.
“The Indian government is focused on making sure that the benefits of economic growth are shared throughout the country with all Indian people so that they can access credit, facilitate savings vehicles and obtain insurance. Private sector initiatives such as this are critical to that effort,” he said.
Paulson also visited the museum of Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore at Jorasanko in north Kolkata.