Saurabh Gupta | 19 Dec, 2015
The secretaries of various ministries feels that the government
is pursuing reforms with gusto and at the same time it is giving thrust to
entrepreneurship, skill building and defusing greater technology, which are the
key to higher growth.
Speaking at FICCI's 88th Annual General Meeting in New Delhi on Friday, Secretary,
Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs), Anup K Pujari said, "While
we already have a lot of good policies on paper, it is the implementation of
these policies which is imperative".
He added that instilling a feeling of trust among the people was imperative for
the successful pursuit of the reform agenda.
"India needs to grow at 9 to 10%, year after year for the next few decades
to lift the poor out of the poverty line. In order to make this happen, the
government has initiate a slew of reforms and is assiduously working towards
ensuring an environment that is conducive for business. These measures would
enable India to break in to the top 50 countries on the World Bank's Ease of
Doing Business Ranking list over the next 2-3 years," said Amitabh Kant,
Secretary, Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion.
Shaktikanta Das, Secretary, Economic Affairs, said that there is no choice for
the country but to speed up the growth process for which there is a need to put
in place certain key enablers. Firstly, given India's demographics, it is
important to give a thrust to skill building; otherwise this advantage will
turn into a demographic liability. Secondly, reform is a continuous process.
The Government has already undertaken reforms related to ease of doing
business, introduction of Gold Monetization Scheme and FDI. Going forward,
government must continue with this momentum. Thirdly, the Government recognizes
the challenges in agriculture and banking sectors and is working towards
addressing these. Lastly, it is most critical to kick start the domestic
private capital expenditure cycle.
Das expressed optimism that GST would be in place soon and the Centre and
states were fully prepared administratively to take this critical tax reform
measure forward.
"India needs to have in place its own growth model, which is sustainable,
resource light and carbon light. At this juncture, we have a very good
opportunity to fashion our own strategy", said Aruna Sundarajan,
Secretary, Steel.
She added there is a need to a thrust to entrepreneurship. Also, greater
technology diffusion will be the key to move to a higher growth trajectory. It
was now time to deepen the process of reforms and focus on initiating and
implementing the next stage of reforms.
Sanjay Kothari, Secretary (Personnel), said that reforms cannot be done in a
single day. Small liberalization and business facilitation measures taken by
the government are noteworthy and should be seen holistically.
He added that a change in mindset of the people would be necessary to push the
reform agenda forward.