Union Cabinet Secretary Ajit Seth on Thursday said bureaucratic reforms are crucial and the need of the hour to ensure efficiency
At the CII annual meeting 2014, Seth said: "Bureaucracy plays two important roles - assisting policy formulation and implementation of policy."
Expanding on the thought, Seth said that growth comes from investment and the bureaucracy plays a crucial role in ensuring the required conducive environment. Seth was speaking at the session titled "Accelerating Growth: The Role of Bureaucracy" in the CII National Conference held in New Delhi.
He highlighted the importance of manufacturing sector in achieving growth and mentioned India's New Manufacturing Policy which aims to increase the share of manufacturing from the current 16 per cent to 25 per cent of the GDP by 2022, besides creating 100 million new jobs.
Participating in the panel discussion Madhav Lal, Secretary, Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises, described the importance of MSMEs in Indian economy which contributes eight per cent of GDP, 45 per cent of manufacturing output and 40 per cent of exports.
M F Farooqui, Chairman, Telecom Commission and Secretary, Department of Telecommunications, Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, pointed out the developments and reforms in the Telecom sector such as 100 per cent FDI, finalization of spectrum user charge in 2014 and encouragement of reserved pricing while stressing the importance and need for inclusive growth.
He identified complexity in policy measures as the biggest challenge in functioning of bureaucracy.
In his address, Amitabh Kant, Secretary-DIPP, Ministry of Commerce and Industry, pointed out that even if India reaches a growth of 8-9 per cent in the next three decades it will not be enough unless labor intensive manufacturing is introduced.
Mr Kant stressed that Urbanization, domestic manufacturing and moving the focus to state elements that do the real work will bring down India's rank by 89. He also informed the participants that after the implementation of Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC), the container travel time will reduce from existing 14 days to 14 hours.
Anup K Pujari, Secretary, Ministry of Mines, said that 85 per cent of miners are SMEs in India. He informed Mr. Farooqui that the mining sector requires expansion of broadband network.
He proudly announced that in his earlier engagement as DGFT he implemented 100 per cent paper less operations which helped in reducing transaction cost of the trading community.
In her address, Sindhushree Khullar, Secretary, Planning Commission, pointed out that the bureaucracy works in institutions and the institutional framework is the key instrument for ensuring good-governance.
Earlier welcoming the panelists, Gopalakrishnan, the president of CII stressed the importance of quick implementation of policies; faster project clearances; speedy decision making to improve the ease of doing business to bring India back to the 8-9 per cent inclusive growth.
