Courts must expand for faster growth, says Jaitley
Union finance minister Arun Jaitley on Sunday said governments had to “control the urge to control everything” and courts should have the urge to expand to achieve faster development in the country.
While delivering the Justice Konda Madhava Reddy Memorial Lecture on Law and Economy at Ravindra Bharathi, Mr Jaitley said that had India introduced economic reforms two decades prior to 1991, it would have been a more developed country than what it was now.
He said, “The mindset of the governments was totally different prior to 1991. After 1991, when economic reforms were introduced, there was a sea change in the policies adopted by governments. Though Taiwan, Japan, Korea and Singapore made faster progress after WW-II by adopting economic reforms, the leadership in India then had failed to acknowledge this. Instead it came out with lame excuses like they were smaller countries and it wouldn’t suit India, which had the highest population.”
Union finance minister Arun Jaitley on Sunday said courts should have the urge to expand to achieve faster development in the country.
Mr Jaitley said that the mindset of the governments was totally different prior to 1991. But, he noted, all this changed after China, a big country that had similar populations and standards of living like India, made rapid strides in development in the 1980s.
“This changed the mindset of the Indian governments, which came forward to adopt economic reforms after 1991. While the reforms between 1991 and 1995 can be classified as one category, those from 1996 can be classified as other category.
“After Vajpayee came to power, the government opened up the telecom sector. The telecom sector is a living example how reforms can bring faster development. When BSNL and MTNL maintained monopoly for over 50 years in telecom sector, less than 10 per cent of India’s population had telephones. After the sector was thrown open to the private sector, we have more telephone connections than the population,” he noted.
Mr Jaitley said similar reforms in aviation, banking sector had contributed to growth.
He said governments should be like “facilitators” and not try to regulate everything. “One good thing was that the government reduced its role as controller. A regulator has been set up for each sector such as insurance, power etc., which takes independent decisions without the involvement of the government,” he said.