The country’s Finance and Defence Minister, Arun Jaitley, has called for cutting down the subsidies to people like him and criticised the policies and governance of the UPA Government.
“In the Budget session, I asked a Congress minister that why should you and I be getting the subsidies…I get many kerosene or diesel subsidies.. Are we entitled to them..? Are 82 crore people entitled to it..? I can say confidently that people like me don’t need subsidies,” Jaitley said at the NCPA, as he released the vision document for BJP Maharashtra, two months ahead of the Maharashtra State elections.
Speaking at his second visit to the financial capital, Jaitley said the situation of high inflation and low growth needs to change and that implementing schemes such as waiver of loans and emptying government funds will not help economic growth.
“If inflation is high then you begin at a point where growth is low. We need to change this situation. And, I believe that unless we find out the reasons which have led us to such a situation, it is difficult to solve it," he added.
Policy paralysis
Jaitley pointed out some reasons such as projects clearances, stagnant coal reserve facilities and unstable tax policies, including imposition of retrospective tax, among others that led to the policy paralysis arising out of poor decisions of the previous government.
GDP growth
He added that India should be growing at 8 per cent. “When Chinese grew, they grew in double digits and their manufacturing growth took a curve at 12 and 14 per cent per annum and jobs are created in the manufacturing sector…We only doled out funds but didn’t create jobs or assets.”
Former NDA Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee left the new government to Manmohan Singh with a growth of 8 per cent while in the last two years, growth declined to 4.5 and 4.7 per cent, while manufacturing was flat in one year and negative in the other. This reduced excise and customs duty reducing revenue for the government which leads to country living on debt, he explained.
Highlighting that banking has reached to only 58 per cent of India’s population, he said financial savings, banking and the ‘investment-starved’ insurance sector need to be incentivised.
Taking a dig at the previous government’s “dream team” regime, the Finance Minister said, “It was a rare occasion of a dream team producing a nightmare…two idioms added into the economy (during the regime) — policy paralysis and tax terrorism.”