Speed Post News Network
New Delhi: Union Minister for Finance and Corporate Affairs Arun Jaitley on November 10 said that the Ggvernment has endeavoured its best to take a number of decisions through consensus for the overall growth of the economy during the last two and half years. He said that the present NDA government took over under adverse global circumstances and its challenge was to re-establish the credibility of economic decision making process. But, the government did not shy away from it and in the larger interest of the country, it tried its best to take as much decisions as possible even at risk but in the overall public interest and to speed-up the growth of the economy. Jaitley was speaking after inaugurating the two day Economic Editors Conference (EEC)-2016 here on Thursday.
Referring to the recent decisions taken by the government, Jaitley said that the different sections of the economy have been opened-up for foreign investment, procedures were simplified and every effort was made to ease the environment for doing business in India. He said that the government recognises the role of market forces in the economy that is why the role of government discretion in decision making process whether in case of auction of coal blocks or spectrum etc., was deliberately minimized, according to a PIB release.
Jaitley said that the government is working on tax reforms including Goods and Services Tax (GST). He gaid that the Government has initiated a series of measures to ensure that the state subsidies reach the most deserving. He said that the major issues have been resolved and GST will be implemented by April 1st, 2017. Besides this, parallel reforms are also in the pipeline in direct tax structure. He said tax collection this year is reasonably good, there is spurt in public expenditure and local demand is increasing. Hence there will be positive impact of recent decision of demonetising of higher value currency notes. He assured that people making small deposits for exchanging old currency notes will not be harassed, said the PIB release.
Earlier welcoming the Union Finance Minister, Senior officers and Editors from across the country and other participants, the Director General of Press Information Bureau(PIB) Frank Noronha said that the main objective of the conference is to provide a platform for interaction between the senior finance journalists from different regions of the country and the ministers and senior functionaries of the Government of India on key economic issues. The two day conference has been organised by PIB in collaboration with the Ministry of Finance.