Keep away from personal businesses while in office: Khurshid to cabinet colleagues

In the context of prime minister Manmohan Singh's request to the union cabinet to stay away from their businesses on a daily basis while in office, union minister for corporate affairs, Salman Khurshid said it was a welcome move and he hoped such a step would draw support from across the board.

He said that ministers should hand over their businesses to trusts to maintain transparency on the lines of the practice in the US where presidents normally transfer their businesses to a trust before taking charge.

Khurshid said that in India too, ministers should follow the precedent to separate their ministerial and commercial responsibility.

On the concluding day of the two-day conference, 'Beyond the Meltdown: search for options', held in New Delhi, he said that India could escape the worst of the meltdown as Indian society did not have the kind of attitude towards consumerism seen in the west, which was the root cause of the problem.

He added that India needed to be careful as it opened itself to the world and the fact that it had remained closed protected it from many infections.

Making a case for alternative financial instruments, the minister said this would unlock a lot of money that had thus far remained unproductive, into the capital market.