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Top Union ministers on Saturday joined a gala event, which had a smattering of Bollywood actors, including Amitabh Bachchan, aimed at publicising the achievements of the Narendra Modi government in the past two years.
While the main event at India Gate in New Delhi that saw Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and many of his ministerial colleagues speak about policies and schemes of the government, some Cabinet ministers joined in from different parts of the country, including Mumbai, Nagpur, Ahmedabad, Guwahati and Vijaywada.
The five-hour programme 'Ek Nayi Subah' (A New Dawn), which was telecast live by Doordarshan, saw Bachchan talking about 'Beti Bachao Beti Padhao'. His participation came amid questions being raised by the Opposition parties in the wake of his name figuring in Panama papers.
Bollywood actor R Madhavan and anchor Neelima Sharma hosted the programme which was also attended by Union Ministers Birender Singh, Maneka Gandhi, Najma Heptulla, Ram Vilas Paswan, Uma Bharti, Harsimrat Kaur Badal and J P Nadda.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said India's economy has picked up pace and achieved a growth rate of about 7.5 per cent amid a global slowdown. "At a time when the global economies are shrinking, our economy is growing at around 7.5 per cent. This is a healthy growth rate, especially in the context of current global economic scenario," he said.
"We brought in the legislation against black money that provides for stringent punishment for tax evaders. We registered criminal cases against several tax evaders."
On Panama Papers, which showed the rich and famous in India exploiting secretive offshore tax regimes, Jaitley said criminal cases would be registered against those who have been stashing black money in tax havens abroad. "We are giving a chance to domestic tax evaders to declare their black money by paying 45 per cent penalty," he added.
He also touched upon financial inclusion schemes for the poor like Jan Dhan Yojana and Mudra Yojana: "Financial inclusion has been our focus. This means joining people with the banking system. In 100 days, we brought around 220 million people into the banking system which is unprecedented."
Jaitley said his government also rationalised the tax regime and the current tax rates in the country are "very competitive". "The previous government created an atmosphere of uncertainty through measures like retrospective tax. We made clear there would be no retrospective tax," he said.
