 "BUSINESS STANDARD ANNUAL AWARDS")
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Saturday warned Opposition parties against trying to turn the reforms wheel back by obstructing legislation on insurance and land reforms. “You can only delay the reforms by a few months but cannot stop these, given the current decisive political leadership” Jaitley said, while speaking at the Business Standard Annual Awards for corporate excellence.
On the ongoing coal and spectrum auctions, Jaitley said these proved the zero-loss theory floated by the previous government was a myth and the expected loss of Rs 1.86 lakh crore estimated by the then Comptroller and Auditor General was “somehow modest”.
“By obstructing the changes in the laws, do you want to go back to the non-transparent process in resource distribution followed by the previous regime? I think that’s unacceptable to the new India,” he said, adding the winners of the Business Standard awards unveiled the face of this new India, one in which people fought hard against adversities, unleashed their entrepreneurial energies and became global leaders. “Forty years ago, no one had heard about these companies. In the coming years, a new set of Indians will build this country,” he added
The finance minister’s 20-minute speech underlined the importance of growth for alleviation of poverty and conveyed to industry a message about his government’s firm resolve on carrying out reforms and easing norms for doing business.
In a lighter vein, Jaitley said the birth of Business Standard in 1975 (the newspaper is celebrating 40 years of thought leadership) was perhaps the only good thing that happened that year. “1975 was perhaps the most terrible year for the country in its entire post-Independence history. The 70s also resulted in the foundation of a dynastic democracy, which was in effect till last year. Various other political parties were run by smaller dynasties and, in the 2014 elections, not a single dynasty did well,” Jaitley said.
He added while companies and economic thinkers had come out of that regressive mindset, the political class hadn’t, as was evident by some of the recent actions.
Jaitley said the reforms initiated by the new government in the past 10 months were aimed at poverty elimination and increasing the share of state governments in the overall tax kitty.
At Saturday’s function, the who’s who of Indian industry listened with rapt attention when the minister said the new government believed in fiscal federalism, apparent from the sharp increase in the share of state governments in the tax kitty. “Also, states will receive the entire revenues from the coal auction, which will help eastern states more, as the coal mines are situated in these states,” Jaitley said, adding “shared sovereignty” was something the current government strongly believed in.
The decisive leadership of the present government was very clear about its road map to increase growth and reduce poverty, he said. “There is still a huge underclass that is poor but has high aspiration to grow,” Jaitley said, adding it was this class that would build a new India.
On lowering corporate tax rates to 25 per cent, as announced in the Budget last week, Jaitley said it was part of the government’s move to make it easier for companies to do business in India. “When we compare the tax rates in the Asean (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) region with India’s, our tax rates were very high and we cannot expect to attract investments. So, we decided to rationalise the taxes and phase out exemptions to make our tax regime more business-friendly,” he said.
One of the most important steps in the Budget was removing cumbersome clearance procedures for projects, the finance minister. “A leading investor told me while the government was good at inviting investors, it took visits to at least 20 departments and at least five years for a project to take off. I have tried to address this problem by announcing a single-window clearance agency for projects,” Jaitley said.
