As the Narendra Modi government completes two years in office, Minister of State for Commerce and Industry Nirmala Sitharaman sits down with Bloomberg TV India for an exclusive conversation. Excerpts:
Before we discuss some of the specifics of you own remit, I just want to get a sense from you how India’s perception and position have been impacted. How would you categorise the situation? The impression about India as almost a failing economy has been corrected. We are now respected; we have been able to occupy the high table on many of the international spheres with a sense of pride. Corruption-free governance has been provided. And the clearheaded leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi is spearheading most of the government projects. Above all, there is inclusive economic leadership: where the government is working for those who have never been covered under many of the schemes, those who have never seen banks, those who never had insurance given to them, those who never had money coming into their accounts directly without going into the hands of dealers.
These are not small developments. Such is the decision making of this government in the last two years. For all those who are asking... “Where are the big- ticket reforms?” This the biggest ticket you can talk of. That kind of an achievement for a country like India is very significant and I would think it is historic.
The Make in India project was very clearly for making manufacturing activity a national priority because only then can you create the jobs this country needs.
Agriculture can’t produce more in terms of job prospects, the services sector has its limitations, so it is manufacturing which holds out promise. This government doesn’t believe that the government is the only agent to provide jobs. It has a lot to do with private employment.
The reason why we have a lot of hope on ‘Start-up India, Stand-up India’, the reason why Make in India has been brought up is because inherently in India, you have entrepreneurial skills, and it is the entrepreneurs who for themselves will have to create the opportunity, and thereby also give jobs to people.
So the government’s aim is to create jobs through entrepreneurial encouragement. Of course the government is spending on building skills. You want people to be ready for the jobs and skills is where we are investing in. So the government, instead of being the only job provider, is also expecting employment to boom from everywhere, provided we are able to nurture it.
Then there is the focus on public spending. Public spending in infrastructure, we believe, is going to create jobs. And infrastructure development has been exceptionally high under NDA. Whether its building of roads, ports, we are spending money. And that money is going to create jobs, which will bring in greater demand for cement and materials, which will be used in construction, which means more jobs in those sectors, which means those companies and sectors which have an NPA may come out of NPA.
There has been a bit of a two step forward and one step back feeling on e-commerce FDI.
Where does it stand? Because the general public really could not care where this money comes from. They are getting discounts and they are happy about it forgetting that there is a domestic industry which is getting affected.
All that we tried doing by issuing the clarification which we did a few months ago was to provide a level-playing field. Assessing what benefits FDI brings to brick and mortar, at what levels it is coming in, we tried doing the same for e-commerce. So the FDI being allowed was only for the market place, we have not opened it up for B2C.
We have not done that for brick and mortar either, so why would we do that for e-commerce? E-commerce is a dynamic situation. Several States have engaged themselves with it. Each one of them has looked at it from different points of view — taxation and so on.
So we have got all of them on board and they come and discuss with us. So we thought the least we can do is to remove certain anomalies. Also, courts have come into the picture now. So, we have come out with definitions and clarifications. That is all we have done.
But if there are issues which people want us to weigh in, issues that the stakeholders want us to have a look at, we are open-minded about it.
That occasion has not yet come… No, no one has approached us seeking clarification.
India’s solar initiative in the last year or two has drawn attention. The WTO matter, the disquiet with the US and the legal issues which has emerged there… Where does it stand? What update can can provide to us on that?
The first one is that on the case on which India lost in WTO, we have gone on an appeal. I think it is important especially after the COP 21 in Paris. Countries that are enthusiastic about renewable energy should be given a fair play. And the second case is the one which ruffled a lot feathers.
The country which was telling us “this is arbitrary, this discriminatory, this is not right and so on” on the domestic content angle, they themselves are giving a lot of domestic content conditions. In the US, 16 states have something like our domestic content in their solar energy activity.
And some of them probably are even reaching a stage where they have had their full lifespan and coming near expiry. We are now planning to take all these 16 instances to the court at WTO. If our domestic content was objectionable, then what about those 16?
And when is that likely to happen?
Even as we are filing it, the US said they would like to talk to us about it. So, we are going to talk. The first case, as I said, is in appeal.
It is not linked to the PM’s visit to the US…
No. The negotiations were on, but I am not sure if the outcomes are anything substantial. So we may consider the option of all these 16 instances going for a second case challenging them.