Government restored the credibility of Indian economy: Jaitley

Jaitley further said that the three major achievements of the present NDA Government in the last three years include credibility of taking decisions, even difficult decisions, drastic changes in the earlier Governance system which led to corruption, and making the market mechanism as the basis of the Government decision making and eliminating the Government discretion in the process of decision making and overall governance. 

Speaking further on the occasion, the Finance Minister said that another major contribution of the present Government was clear direction in decision making, creating an atmosphere for the growth of the economy at large so that it is ensured that the benefits of the growth accrue to the poor and underprivileged section of society in particular.

"Another major achievement of the present Government was Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) Reforms as a result of which India was the largest recipient of FDI in the world, especially in the last two years i.e., 2015-16 and 2016-17. The Finance Minister said that despite the low private investment, FDI along with public investment played an important role in investment cycle," said he.

The Finance Minister said that the present Central Government also took special care to strengthen the State Governments by allocating more funds to them as per the recommendations of 14th Finance Commission.

Jaitley further said that the present NDA Government created a federal institution (GST Council) based on federal taxation i.e. Goods and Services Tax (GST) which is now at the last stage of its implementation. Shri Jaitley said that this will be a historical indirect tax reform which will bring transparency, simplicity and efficiency in the tax administration.

He said that the present Government also implemented JAM (Jandhan, Aadhar Mobile) Trinity based financial inclusion system under which a law relating to Aadhar was enacted so that resources are optimally utilised by plugging the leakages and eliminating the underserved category of beneficiaries.

Highlighting the major decision of the present Government relating to demonetization, Jaitley said that it has helped the Government in three ways, i.e., firstly by having greater movement towards digitization of transactions, secondly, helped in widening of the tax payers base which contributed to increase in the revenue collections by more than 18% during 2016-17 and thirdly, sending a strong message that it is no longer safe to deal in cash. The Finance Minister said that demonetization has established a ‘new normal’.