Budget Won't Delay Reforms: DEA Secretary

CHENNAI: With the Union government’s economic reform agenda gathering pace, Secretary to the Department of Economic Affairs Shaktikanta Das said there would be no waiting around in the process of announcement and implementation.

“The government will not wait for a major event like the budget to announce reforms. If it is needed, if we are ready, we will announce it,” he stated.

Delivering a lecture at the memorial function for former Union Finance Secretary G Ramachandran, Das said the pace of ongoing economic reforms will continue unimpeded. “Reform will be a 24 x 7 exercise so far as the government is concerned. There will be no delays,” he said. The statement comes in the wake of several major announcements in the economic sphere made by the Union Government recently including extensive relaxation of FDI caps and a new FDI policy, which according to Das is the single largest and most impactful announcement in over two decades.

Das went on to place the government’s priorities and the reform on the table. The first is expeditious implementation of the Goods and Services Tax. “Our priorities lie in the early implementation of the GST. As things stand, we do not have one single open market but a series of small separate ones. There are a multiplicity of taxes and even cases of tax on tax. The GST will deal with all that along with giving a boost to the GDP growth. Experts say the boost will be along the lines of 1.5 - 2%,” he said.

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