FOREIGN INVESTMENT-Open for Business

'Open for Business' THE government will, in the next few days, sign the counter-guarantee agreement with Enron for the Dabhol power project in Maharashtra. Power minister N K P Salve gave this categoric assurance, appropriately enough, at a meeting of the Indo-American Chamber of Commerce this Wednesday. Not that there was the slightest chance that the government would be permitted to entertain any second thoughts in this matter, certainly not after the plain speaking by the US energy secretary, Hazel O'Leary, during her visit to this country last month. The US official had made it clear that nothing less than a sovereign guarantee from the government of India to the US firms proposing to put up power projects here, of whom Enron is one, would convince American businessmen that India is a good place to do business". The government of India has not demurred and it is to be assumed that its guarantee, on the same omnibus terms as offered to Enron, will be available in due course to the six other power projects to be built by foreign companies which have been cleared by the cabinet committee for business affairs.