NDA Govt revived the economy after coming into power, Sitharaman

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has said NDA government has  revived the economy and removed the undergrowth after coming into power in 2014. Addressing the gathering during the Finance Ministry's Iconic Week celebrations by the Department of Economic Affairs and SEBI in New Delhi on Wednesday, the Minister said corporate tax was reduced, and economy was digitised and formalised by this government. She said as a result, India has faced and came out of all its challenges in the past 75 years. The Minister added that digitization has led to a large number of innovation, including UPI. She gave the example of COWIN platform and called it unique. She said the measures included banking reforms, corporate tax reduction, digitalisation, implementation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) and of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC). Many of these steps were taken after 2014 and before the pandemic.

Sitharaman said economic challenges have been cyclic and occur often in a decade or 15 years. Every government had to face these challenges and pull the country out of it, she added. She said the country faced challenges in 1991 when the government took steps to avert the crisis so that the economy was revived again. “So was the situation in 2013-14. The Modi government faced the challenges and pulled the economy out of it again. But new challenges came again in the form of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020.”

Speaking at the function, Chief Economic Adviser Anantha Nageswaran said, India's economy will grow further,  once  the cloud of the pandemic and the geopolitical conflict recedes. The CEA said India is right now in a situation where the economy faces considerable amount of challenges both from global macro monetary policies and political developments. He said, the impact of structural reforms, like GST and IBC, will help boost India's growth .The CEA said  this year, India will be facing challenges of managing sustainable high growth, moderating inflation, keeping fiscal deficit under balance and also ensuring that the external value of the Indian rupee remains same. Finance minister launched Netra portal and mobile App, which will track and monitor 600 projects under line of credit with the assistance of more than 2.5 lakh crore rupees.