Modi provided scam-free governance; India now shines in global economy: Jaitley

The minister said the country’s mood from despair has transformed into hope and aspirations.

May 26, 2018 03:51 pm | Updated December 01, 2021 06:10 am IST - New Delhi

Union Minister Arun Jaitley on Saturday said the Modi government has provided a ‘scam-free’ governance during the last four years, and the country has transformed from being a part of the ‘fragile five’ to the “bright spot” on global stage.

The focus of the government will now be on consolidation of the initiatives taken in the past, Jaitley said in a Facebook post on completion of four years of the NDA government.

Jaitley said the preceding ten years of the UPA rule had unquestionably witnessed the most corrupt government since Independence.

 

“Prime Minister Narendra Modi created transparent systems through legislative and institutional changes which have given this country a scam-free governance. Unlike the UPA, the Prime Minister is a natural leader of both his party and the nation,” wrote Jaitley.

“India has transformed from being a part of the “fragile five” to the “bright spot” on the global economic scene. A regime of policy paralysis has been transformed into one of decisions and actions.

The minister said the country’s mood from despair has transformed into hope and aspirations.

“Good governance and good economics have been blended with good politics. The result of this has been that the BJP is more confident.Jaitley said.

He said Modi has institutionalised a system where discretions have been eliminated.

“Discretions lead to abuse of power because they can be misused. Allocations of contracts, natural resources, spectrum and other Government largesse which were being distributed through discretions, are now allocated through a market mechanism.

India has to transform from a tax non-compliant society to a tax-compliant society, he said.

“The enactment and implementation of the Goods and Services Tax, the impact of demonetisation, effective tax compliance are all steps against black money, steps which are formalising the Indian economy. ,” he said.

The minister further said India had fallen off the global radar under the UPA regime. In its initial years, when the world economy was booming, India grew on the strength of global tailwinds.

“When the global situation became challenging, the UPA’s decisiveness and performance collapsed. The last two years of the UPA had witnessed substantially lower growth rates. From the very first year of NDA, India is the world’s fastest growing major economy with the highest GDP growth rates. This is also the global projection for the next few years,” Jaitley added.

The “unprecedented” CAD and “alarmingly high” fiscal deficit showed poor economic management by the UPA.

“Having inherited the mess, the NDA, year after year, has brought it down to 3.5 per cent and shall, this year, try and deliver a 3.3 per cent fiscal deficit. The UPA’s economic management was such that even when fiscal deficits were high, expenditure cuts of over rupees one lakh crores were done in order to make fiscal deficit optically look slightly better,” he said.

The NDA government has increased infrastructure expenditure by 134 per cent while that in the road sector programmes has witnessed a 189 per cent increase between the last year of the UPA and the current year the minister noted.

He said resources are transferred to the states with 42 per cent devolution of taxes, Finance Commission grants and assistance through the CSS schemes.

“Institutional changes thus being enacted and implemented are putting the Indian economy on a far stronger wicket,” Jaitley wrote.

Top News Today

Sign in to unlock member-only benefits!
  • Access 10 free stories every month
  • Save stories to read later
  • Access to comment on every story
  • Sign-up/manage your newsletter subscriptions with a single click
  • Get notified by email for early access to discounts & offers on our products
Sign in

Comments

Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.

We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of The Hindu and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.