Jaitley pats govt for fast-paced decisions

Says the air has been cleared after UPA gloom

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley kickstarted the media blitz on NDA’s first year in office, saying the government is taking almost one decision each day to augment economic growth in the country despite obstructionism by the Opposition.

He said the clarity and the accelerated pace of decision-making has brought a kind of “restlessness” to grow even faster. Jaitley was talking to mediapersons on completion of one year of the NDA rule at the Centre.

“There was a general environment of gloom a year ago. People felt that the decision-making process of the government of India was so controversial and discretionary that even investors were prosecuted. That air has been cleared by the transparency of this government. That has been replaced by hope and excitement. The restlessness is to grow even faster which is the real potential of India,” he said.

Land Bill will be passed
He expressing the hope that the controversial land bill too will be passed in the monsoon session of  Parliament. “No political party has a right to say I will not allow it to be passed. They have a right to vote against it. And when a political party says I will vote against it, the numbers will eventually decide whether it will be passed or not. And I think the numbers are very clear,” he said.

He said the 2013 land bill had impediments to the growth of rural infrastructure and the government has sought to remove those in 2015. Jaitley said in the past 12 months, the government has been able to ease inflation and curb fiscal deficit, tried to combat corruption, and speeded up decision-making. He said the bad loans on the balance sheet of Indian banks are slowly disappearing and FDI had increased 40 per cent since the new government came in last year. Another important feature of this government has been to strengthen the federal structure of India. Overwhelming support of regional parties is directly attributable to the attitude of the central government towards the state, he said.

“The NITI Aayog has been constituted as an important pillar of the government’s initiative to strengthen federalism,” Jaitley said. He said the government had a clear roadmap for the coming year. “Our priorities in the next session of Parliament will be the passage of GST and Land bills,” he said.