Emphasising that the world has confidence in India and its economy, Union Minister Anurag Thakur on Sunday said the Central Government aims at making India among the top three global economies by 2025.
“India has become the world’s 5th largest economy and in the next five years, the target is to make India among the top three economies of the world,” the Union Minister of State for Finance and Corporate Affairs said while addressing a press conference here after meeting stakeholders from various trades and industries during an interactive session organised by the Income Tax Department in collaboration with CII.
Thakur said various financial institutions, including IMF and RBI, have projected that India will once again attain fast growth.
“They (IMF, RBI) have said India is bound to grow in financial year 2020-21 at the rate of 6-6.5 per cent that clearly indicates that the world has confidence in India and Indian economy. And, the Central Government is taking all the steps in that direction,” he said.
“If you look at FDI inflows during the last five years into the country, they far exceed the FDI during the 10 years of UPA rule,” Thakur claimed, adding the country’s foreign exchange reserves (Forex) have swelled to all-time high of USD 476 billion.
The Union Minister said the fiscal deficit, which used to be at 5.2 per cent during the UPA regime, has come down to 3.3 per cent, though “this year it will be 3.8 percent and next year we will bring it down to 3.5 per cent.”
Thakur, who represents Hamirpur in Himachal Pradesh as MP, said the Narendra Modi Government has shown what fiscal discipline is.
“Inflation, which used to be 12 per cent, came down to 4 per cent. All macro- economic indicators point that India is going ahead in the right direction,” he added.
He also touched upon the government’s recent initiative ‘Vivaad se Vishwas’, a scheme to settle disputes between the tax men and taxpayers.
Thakur said, “Addressing the legacy of disputes in the Indian Taxation System, the Centre has implemented one time ‘Vivad se Vishwas’ scheme for resolution of pending tax disputes, which provides waiver from interest and penalty.
It is expected to resolve up to 90 per cent of the pending cases with the Department, he added. The objective of interaction here was to understand the views of the stakeholders and directly take their feedback on various policy and procedural issues faced by the traders and industry, Thakur said.
Terming the banking sector reforms as priority of the Government, the Union Minister said that since 2014, banks were in bad shape with poor asset quality, which has been reviewed and around Rs 63,000 crore recapitalisation out of the Rs 70,000 crore has already been undertaken, with the four Public Sector Banks to be soon out of the Prompt Corrective Action (PCA) Framework.
Highlighting Government of India’s commitment to the MSMEs, Thakur said that the one-time settlement Policy has already been framed for the support of the MSMEs followed by extending the debt restructuring window for micro, small and medium enterprises by a year to March 31, 2021, in measures aimed at imparting thrust to the MSME sector.
Addressing the financing issues of the MSMEs, banks have been advised to conduct twice a month sessions with the industry to resolve their finance related issues, he added.
Lashing out at the Congress, he alleged that it was during the UPA rule that economy had been mismanaged.
“There were scams, real status of bank NPAs were hidden, inflation was high,” he said.
About the possible impact of outbreak of coronavirus in China on world economy, he said India’s Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman recently held a meeting with industry to seek feedback in this regard.
“We are seeking feedback from the industry and Government will take appropriate steps,” he added.
Earlier at the interactive session, various representatives shared their views on the issues regarding GST return filing and other related matters. The Minister had also chaired an interactive session in Chandigarh on Saturday evening with eminent people from various walks of life like academia, industry, fine arts and media with endeavour to optimise the efforts for betterment of the people, the economy and society.