 "GST, banks, infrastructure India's top priorities: Arun Jaitley")
The top economic policy priorities for the Indian government are to pass a planned Goods and Services Tax, to revive the banking sector and get stalled infrastructure projects moving, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said on Wednesday.
Jaitley told a conference that, as India looks to big state elections next year and a general election in 2019, economic reforms should deliver growth benefits to voters but the government must also "blend" them with social programmes.
"The advantages of reforms are the advantages of growth," Jaitley told the Economist India Summit.
He also said India's economy needed to grow faster than the 7.1 per cent recorded in the latest quarter. "We are still far below our best," he said in a podium interview.