Promising more reforms, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Thursday said efforts are being made to “put to sleep” pending taxation issues to attract investments and make fundamentals of the economy sound so that it can withstand the global turmoil.
Addressing a gathering of industry leaders at the India Economic Convention 2015, the Minister said a number of taxation issues have been put to rest and the endeavour is to put to sleep the remaining ones.
Regretting that the Goods and Services Tax (GST) got stuck because of political reasons, Jaitley said, “many reforms (are) in pipeline”. In order to promote ease of doing business, he said the government is working on areas like bankruptcy code, disputes resolution in major contracts, expeditious arbitration proceedings and a public procurement law. “These are (reforms)... which we are trying to put on track,” Jaitley added. <g data-gr-id="44">Refering</g> to the fast-changing global financial situation, the Minister said, “In a situation when there is a turmoil by the day... we are trying to make the fundamentals of our economy a little sound so that our ability to resist changes substantially increases.
“And once we are able to walk on this growth track, I am quite certain that the architecture of growth for India would be settled, strong and deep.” The Minister also underlined the need for improvement in the regulatory environment saying, the regulatory system has to be prepared for a much faster change.
Recalling the recent World Bank study on ranking states for ease of doing business, Jaitley said there was no doubt of Gujarat emerging on top, but what was noteworthy was the good ranking of the tribal states like Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh and their efforts to attract investment.
“Without investment, there is going to be no economic <g data-gr-id="49">activity,</g> or no additional economic activity. Investment is always an important additionality of resources,” he said, recalling the efforts of the government to promote domestic investment and attract foreign investment. The amount saved on account of declining oil prices in the global market, he said, is being used to promote investment in infrastructure and allocate more resources to the farm sector. “We have used the reduction in oil prices globally and that has actually had a great emphasis on budgetary shift. The percentage of subsidy as part of GDP has declined. And that rationalisation has enabled us to shift a large part of our resources into infrastructure.
“The road sector is building up, the railways are looking up with a lot more money in <g data-gr-id="40">pocket</g>, the rural roads will do better. We need to move a little faster as far as sea ports are concerned,” the Minister said.
Recalling how the decision-making got skewed during the UPA rule because of <g data-gr-id="47">emergence</g> of power centre outside the government, Jaitley said the things have changed after the NDA received a clear mandate by people. There is clarity about the direction in which the economy has to move, Jaitley said, adding that the ministers work with the full backing of the Prime Minister, who unquestionably has “the last word”.