Modi govt believes in big reforms: FM
FM ASKS ALL STAKEHOLDERS TO THINK BIG AND ACT FAST AS THE MODI GOVT IS WILLING TO LISTEN TO THEM AND TAKE STEPS
NEW DELHI: The Narendra Modi government believes in “big reforms”, not incremental improvements, Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman said a day after steering massive correction to remove anomalies in the goods and services Tax (GST) regime, even as commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal called the changes “gamechanging” decisions that will boost economic growth.
Releasing a report on the ranking of states on the basis of their implementation of reforms on Thursday, Sitharaman asked all stakeholders to think big and act fast as the Modi government is always willing to listen to them and take steps as it believes in “responsive” reforms. “Hon’ble Prime Minister’s repeated advice is no incremental changes, you should look at big reforms. We can’t be spending years over… [incremental changes],” she said.
Her statement assumes significance in the light of several changes announced by the 47th GST Council meeting in Chandigarh on Wednesday that corrected inversion of duties on several goods and services, withdrew unreasonable tax exemptions to check revenue leakages, and relaxed laws for ease of business. According to the report, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Haryana, Karnataka, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, and Telangana emerged as the “top achievers”, arranged in alphabetical order, based on an assessment of implementation of Business Reforms Action Plan (BRAP) in 2020, the government said in a statement.
Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh figure under the “achievers” category, while Assam, Chhattisgarh, Goa, Jharkhand, Kerala, Rajasthan, and West Bengal have been placed in the “aspirers” category, the statement added.
Andaman & Nicobar, Bihar, Chandigarh, Daman & Diu, Dadra & Nagar Haveli, Delhi, Jammu & Kashmir, Manipur, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Puducherry, and Tripura have been clubbed under the “emerging business ecosystems” category.
Speaking on the occasion, Goyal said the two-day GST council meeting was “very successful” as it took “some very important game-changing decisions” both in terms of correcting inversions and clarifying several issues, which will “boost” economic growth.
He said the decision to allow non-GST registered small retailers to engage in e-commerce was one such that would help small retailers and those in the handicrafts, handloom and textile sectors to use e-commerce platforms such as the government’s upcoming digital commerce network, Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC), an alternative to multinational e-tailing platforms such as Amazon and Flipkart. “Another very important decision is for cut and polished diamonds, which has been very widely accepted, recognised and welcomed by [the industry]. There was an inversion in rate, which has been right-sized by an increase [in GST] from 0.25% to 1.5%. I think, this is a very, very important decision, which will again give a big boost to the sector,” he said.Speaking about the Modi government’s approach towards reforms and economic development, Sitharaman said the nature of reforms has undergone change since 1991. “The reforms now taking place are responsive reforms. Unlike the reforms of 1991, which were given to us for implementation…,” she said.
“The objective is to see what will bring an improvement in systems and ensure better lives for us. An element of ‘nudge’ has been brought into every layer of the government. Nudging cannot be by the government only and the industry has a big role to play there,” she said while appreciating the changes brought in the assessment framework of implementation under the BRAP over years. Nudge refers to a popular precept of behavioural economics that believes positive reinforcement and indirect suggestions could influence decision making for the better.
Elaborating on the assessment procedure for the ranking, Goyal said the process has evolved from evidence-based to 100% feedback in multilingual format. He said the purpose of this BRAP exercise is to infuse a culture of learning from each other’s best practices and improve upon the business climate in each states with a unified objective for India to emerge as a most favoured investment destination across the globe. “The process started in 2014 has started bearing fruit as we go along. Rather than ease of doing business being limited to a few areas, few cities and few businesses, we are seeing it being reflected across the country through the spirit of competitive federalism and also of collaboration,” Goyal said. BRAP 2020 has 301 reform points covering 15 business regulatory areas such as access to information, single window system, labour, environment, land administration and transfer of land and property, and utility permits etc.