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New Delhi : Union Minster for Finance, Defence and Corporate Affairs Arun Jaitley on June 1, 2017, said here that after the present NDA Government came to power in May, 2014, it has been able to restore the credibility of the Indian economy and the government which was at its lowest ebb due to serious charges of corruption and indecisiveness during the earlier UPA regime.
Jaitley said that the three major achievements of the present NDA Government in the last three years include credibility of taking decisions even difficult decisions, drastic changes in the earlier Governance system which led to corruption, and making the market mechanism the basis of the government decision making and eliminating the government discretions in the process of decision making and overall governance, according to a PIB release. Jaitley was addressing a presser to highlight the key initiatives and achievements of the different departments of the Ministry of Finance & Defence in the last three years.
Jaitley said that another major contribution of the present government was clear direction in decision making, creating an atmosphere for the growth of the economy at large to ensure the benefits of the growth accrue to the poor and underprivileged section of society in particular. Another major achievement of the present government was Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) Reforms as a result of which India was the largest recipient of FDI in the world especially in 2015-16 and 2016-17.
The Finance Minister said that despite the low private investment, FDI along with public investment played an important role in investment cycle. He said that the present Central Government also took special care to strengthen the state governments by allocating more funds to them as per the recommendations of 14th Finance Commission, said the PIB release.
Jaitley further said that the present NDA Government created a federal institution (GST Council) based on federal taxation i.e. Goods and Services Tax (GST) which is now at the last stage of its implementation. He said that this will be a historical indirect tax reform which will bring transparency, simplicity and efficiency in the tax administration. Jaitley said that the present government also implemented JAM (Jandhan, Aadhar, Mobile) Trinity based financial inclusion system under which a law relating to Aadhar was enacted so that resources are optimally utilised by plugging the leakages and eliminating the underserved category of beneficiaries, according o the PIB release.
Highlighting the major decision of the present government relating to demonetization, Jaitley said it has helped the government in three ways, i.e., firstly by having greater movement towards digitization of transactions, secondly, helped in widening of the tax payers base which contributed to increase in the revenue collections by more than 18% during 2016-17 and thirdly, sending a strong message that it is no longer safe to deal in cash. The Finance Minister said that demonetization has established a ‘new normal’.
Highlighting other achievements of the government in the financial sector, Jaitley mentioned about Operation Clean Money, constitution of Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) and enactment of Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code among others, He said that these have brought transformational changes in the Indian economy.