Narendra Modi says NDA govt saved country from disaster; confident of making India a $5-tn economy

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said that the target of $5-trillion Indian economy is achievable and that all-round steps have been taken to develop the economy.

Prime Minister @narendramodi says the target of $5 tn Indian #economy is achievable & that all-round steps have been taken to develop the Indian economy pic.twitter.com/aXuO2FUd1B

— CNBC-TV18 (@CNBCTV18Live) December 20, 2019

Speaking at the annual conference of industry body ASSOCHAM in New Delhi on Friday, Modi said that the Indian economy was headed towards disaster 5-6 years ago and his government checked and brought discipline in the system. The prime minister said the Indian economy has the resilience to reverse the current slowdown and return to a high growth trajectory. He exhorted corporates to take bold investment decisions to help push up GDP growth, He highlighted his government’s decisions such as decriminalisation of corporate offences and promised them that “no inappropriate action will be taken on genuine corporate decisions”. The Prime Minister highlighted that India climbed from 142nd among 190 nations on the World Bank’s ease of doing business ranking to 63rd place in three years and noted that India is among the top 10 nations which have in the last three years made continuous improvement. “This hasn’t come without having to face anger and allegations from people,” he said. “We have been told that we are corporate agents. But we are agents of 130 crore Indians.” He said many provisions of Companies Act have been decriminalised and more amendments will follow. Also, companies facing failures have been given exit routes in the insolvency and bankruptcy code (IBC), he said. These decisions will help in safeguarding the corporate world and its capital, he said. “I want to assure banking and corporate world that we have been able to overcome weakness in the system to a large extent. And so they should now take bold decisions fearlessly, invest boldly and spend undauntedly.” “I want to assure no inappropriate action will be taken in case of genuine commercial decisions,” he said. He said that the aim of the government is to both formalise and modernise the country’s economy. “We are moving towards a faceless tax administration system to bring more transparency, efficiency and accountability in the tax system,” Modi said. Assuring the industry of no inappropriate action on genuine commercial decisions, he said that unlike the previous long duration of a few days, now it takes only a few hours to register a company.

The prime minister also said that not all business failures are due to frauds and the failures cannot be considered as a crime. “Mismanagement of certain rules in the Companies Act would have led to a criminal act and the government decriminalised them,” Modi said. The prime minister said that the country has a government that listens to the farmers, labourers and corporate world. Dynamic changes have been made in the Goods and Services Tax (GST) on the suggestion of trade and industry, he said adding India is among the top 10 nations which have in last three years made the maximum improvement in ease of doing business ranking. Modi said many provision of the Companies Act have been decriminalised and work is on to bring in more provisions. — With PTI inputs