Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday said the aim of his government is to make India a developed country in one generation.
Addressing the investment bankers, financial experts and regulators after inaugurating the new campus of the National Institute of Securities Markets at Patalganga near Mumbai on Saturday, Mr. Modi said, “financial markets can play an important role in the modern economy by helping in mobilizing savings and channelizing the savings towards productiveinvestments. India cannot become a developed country without world class securities and commodity markets.”
He however, cautioned that financial markets can also damage, if not properly regulated.
Mr. Modi said India has earned a good name for its well-regulated securities markets.
“The spread of electronic means of trading and the use of depositories have made our markets more transparent. SEBI as an institution can also take pride in this” he added.
Stressing upon the need for our markets to raise capital to finance projects benefiting vast majority of population, Prime Minister urged the financial experts gathered at the event to find ways to enable the capital markets to provide long term capital for infrastructure.
“Today, most of our infrastructure projects are financed by the Government or through banks. The use of capital markets for financing infrastructure is rare. For infrastructure projects to be viable, it is very important that the borrowing should be of long duration” Mr. Modi observed.
Prime Minister also said that our commodity markets must become useful to our farmers, not just remain avenues for speculation.
“Unless and until we make the commodity markets directly useful to farmers, they are just a costly ornament in our economy, not a useful tool”.
He said SEBI should work for closer linkage between spot markets like e-NAM and derivatives markets to benefit farmers.
Prime Minister asserted that India’s place as the fastest growing large economy has not come about by accident.
Listing out the measures taken by the government in stabilizing the economy and putting it on the growth trajectory, Shri Modi said government has been successful in cutting down the fiscal deficit as well current account deficit, increasing public investment and improving the ease of doing business.
“We will not shy away from taking difficult decisions, if those decisions are in the interest of the country. Demonetization is an example. It has short term pain but will bring long term gain” he said.
Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, in his address said demonetisation has brought in more funds in the banking system by converting a large sums of informal savings into formal savings. He said as the economy continues to mature and strengthen, the incentive for ordinary citizens to channelise their savings into organized markets would grow.
Mr. Jaitley also expressed satisfaction over the progress of deliberated democracy involving dialogue with states over implementation of Goods & Services Tax, GST.
He complimented SEBI for its initiative in spreading financial literacy and hoped that the new NISM campus would help expand its outreach activities. Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis promised all cooperation to SEBI in converting the NISM into an University.
About the new NISM Campus
NISM, established by SEBI is engaged in capacity building among stakeholders in the securities markets through financial literacy, professional education, certification, enhancing governance standards and fostering policy research.
The institute carries its activities through six Schools of Excellence — School for Investor Education and Financial Literacy, School for Certification of Intermediaries, School for Securities Information and Research, School for Regulatory Studies and Supervision, School for Corporate Governance and School for Securities Education.
The new NISM campus, spread over 70 acres at Patalganga, has a potential of accommodating 5,000 students and Securities and Exchange Board of India has invested more than Rs 400 crore in the institute.
