The finance minister is of the opinion that with more money in taxpayers hands under the new I-T regime, they would be the best judge to decide their own choice for investment.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman charted out the pitfalls that had to be avoided and the challenges presented by a series of unprecedented events while drawing up Union Budget 2023, in an exclusive interview with Network18 Group Editor Rahul Joshi. She said that government has tried providing a thrust to a more ecologically friendly economy given its net-zero commitment, explained the move to tweak the personal income tax slabs, and laid out the reasons why India is still one of the best destination investments. Edited excerpts:
This is your fifth Budget, you are navigating epochal events in the last couple of years. One was the COVID-19 pandemic and the other was the war in Ukraine. What I would like to understand from you is, what was going on in the mind of Nirmala Sitharaman, and how she was dealing with policymaking in these last five historic years?
Starting with a very difficult question, difficult not for any other reason but to capture the experiences, and also to look back at it when you are probably slightly out of it, is difficult to describe in a short answer.
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I had no precedent before me to handle such a situation, there were no given templates. There were no examples to follow, and there were no theories which would have worked in such a context. So essentially, we were going by continuous conversation with all stakeholders, those who have something to say about the industry and its sufferings, the MSME sector, or even those who are observing it with a more discerning eye. We had to engage in conversations continuously with all people, take their view, weigh for ourselves to see which one is right, which is most suitable for us…because eventually all this is what we are answerable for. And, therefore, I think I would recall the ways in which the honourable PM led the conversation. He would never tire from meeting us, he would never say, not today. But eventually…one thing which was not so much relevant for dealing with the pandemic itself, but yet had to be done, was not to let go the opportunity to continue the reforms process. We may have a stable, clear-headed leadership, which stands by us and gives us the guidance under the prime minister and we may come up with proposals and also launch some specific schemes at that time to give relief and so on, (but) it is eventually the way in which the people of India have absorbed it all, and found the best ways to go around with this kind of succour or handholding from the government even if it may not be adequate. So the credit goes to the people of India. That is why today we are where we are.
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