Jaitley at Agenda Aaj Tak: PM Modi is after me to improve India's ease of doing business ranking to top 50

Slamming the Congress for not taking measures for economic reforms during the UPA rule, Arun Jaitley said under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, India has improved its ranking from 142 to 100 in ease of doing business.

"Prime Minister Narendra Modi is after people like me to improve India's ease of doing business ranking to top 50," Jaitley said adding that among the top 10 indicators of the World Bank, India's rank on three-four indicators is very poor.

"Among the top indicators of the World Bank for ease of doing business are land, construction, contract enforcement and custom clearance, where India ranks very low," Jaitley said.

HOW CAN INDIA IMPROVE?

He said that on land, India ranks 183 out of 188 countries. "Improving on land indicator requires steps from the state governments. It involves system at the municipal level. If someone wants to set up an enterprise, the person needs about 50 permissions right from municipalities. The state governments should also help," he added.

"If we can improve taxation system by putting it on IT, can't we put municipal permission on IT? This is to happen in states. The urban development ministry is interacting with states in this regard. If we get these permissions online, we can move forward towards the top 50 rank," the finance minister said.

With regard to contract enforcement, Jaitley said the finance ministry and law ministry have worked on this and a draft is likely to be introduced in Parliament soon. On the issue of custom clearance, Jaitley said, "This is related to me. I am trying to simplify it. We are working to reduce the time of stay at ports. Less time spent at ports improves ease of doing business."

CONGRESS TAXED MORE

Responding to Rahul Gandhi's charge that GST is Gabbar Singh Tax, Jaitley said, "this is surprising because the standard tax rate on trade during Congress rule was 31 per cent. The excise tax was about 12.5 per cent, then there was VAT of 14.5 per cent and beyond that there was tax on tax, called cascading tax, and all led to about 31 per cent tax."

"I put the 31 per cent tax on trade to 28 per cent bracket under GST. I further brought several articles from 28 per cent bracket to 18 and 12 per cent bracket. Still they call us anti-trader," Jaitley said.

Responding to the Opposition's charge of frequent changes in the GST rules, Jaitley said, the problems are bound to come and the government would remove all the problems that the traders face.

Asserting that the revision of GST rates will continue, the finance minister said, "the GST rates will change. It has direct relation with rise in collection of revenue. As the revenue collection improves, we will decrease the rates. I believe that reasonable rates lead to higher collection of revenue."

Arun Jaitley said GST has brought a transformational change in the way India did business. He said, "earlier trucks had to wait for 7-8 hours at state borders. We removed it one night and made the transportation barrier-less. Traders had to deal with 17 departments earlier. Now they have to deal with one. All inspectors have been removed from traders' business. They have just to file their returns online," Jaitley stated.