(NDTV)
A day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s strong defence of his government’s handling of the economy, one of his top ministers Piyush Goyal has asserted that, “the economy is in very good shape”, saying a slowdown in growth is temporary, caused by the big and complex transition to a new national tax regime GST.
Speaking exclusively to NDTV, Mr Goyal, who is the minister for railways and coal, rejected criticism of last year’s notes ban and GST saying both were essential to convert the informal economy into a formal economy. Demonetisation, Mr Goyal said, was a “significant success”, and had “sent out a strong message” on black money, signalling a change of mindset that says, “let’s now go for an honest, clean formal economy.”
Challenges like massive bad loans piled up with banks, Mr Goyal said, were inherited by the Modi government, which he described as a government that “was ready to bite the bullet.”
The minister steered clear of talking about the central bank’s conservative approach in cutting interest rates but underscored that the government did engage “with all schools of thought and with our regulators”. Interest rates that were “pretty high” three years ago had “fallen by 200 basis points”, or 2 per cent, he added, pointing that good companies could access finance at “very competitive rates”.
On criticism on the way GST has been implemented, Piyush Goyal pointed out that as part of a GST council, the Centre and states had worked in tandem to build a framework for a national tax.
