Mint Primer | Alliance dharma: What reforms work, what won’t

livemint.com:

After two terms of absolute majority, the Indian electorate has given a fractured mandate to the Narendra Modi-led BJP. The era of coalition politics is back with a bang. Does that also mean an end to the promise of big-ticket reforms? Mint explains.

Renewables and electric mobility are two of the biggest focus areas of the Centre, and irrespective of politics, this will likely continue. In his post-election speech, Modi referred to green energy several times. In its 2nd term, the government rolled out production- linked incentive (PLI) schemes to boost local manufacturing of EVs and lithium cell batteries among other things.

This scheme will see more sector-specific incentives being formulated. The third phase of the Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Electric vehicles (FAME) scheme could be among the first to be announced by the new government. India’s prickly labour laws and difficulties in acquiring land are two of the biggest challenges for industry.

Though governments have tried to address these in the past, they have had to face a backlash. The NDA government also wanted to usher in reforms in these two areas. However, the compulsion of taking its allies into confidence means wholesale changes are now unlikely.

In 2019-20, labour laws were consolidated into four codes but these are yet to be notified pending legislation in the states. Reforms such as digitization of land records will continue but an overhaul is almost certainly out. Unlikely.

Since the prolonged protests and rollback of the farm bill, little has changed on the ground. Farmers have stuck to their demand of price guarantee while the government remains non-committal. With a brute majority, there was a chance of a watered-down version being