Focus on political consensus for GST: Industry to government

New Delhi: As the Modi government nears its second anniversary, industry leaders today said focus should now be on building political consensus for passage of long- pending GST Bill and on expediting the non-legislative reforms.

"Government needs to focus on building political consensus so that the GST Bill is passed in Rajya Sabha. Goods and Services Tax (GST) is a landmark reform which will straight away add upto 1.5 percent to the GDP," Godrej Group Chairman Adi Godrej said.

In a statement, industry body CII President Naushad Forbes said: "Indian economy is definitely much improved and more stable than it was two years ago. This reflects sound and strategic macroeconomic management to tackle inflation, keep the fiscal deficit on the target path, and curb volatility".

"In the near term, government can look at expediting non-legislative and executive actions which could help in further reducing the procedural impediments to growth across sectors," another industry body Ficci's President Harshvardhan Neotia said.

Commending the government for its focus on ease of doing business, incentivising new entrepreneurship, facilitating submission of returns, and making administrative processes more transparent, CII Director-General Chandrajit Banerjee said, "We are optimistic that India's ease of doing business ranking can rise to among the top 50 from the current 130 within the next two years with sustained micro-level actions."

India ranks 130 out of 189 countries in the ease of doing business, according to the World Bank's Doing Business Report 2016.

Rajiv Memani, Country Managing Partner, Ernst and Young, said the Finance Ministry in the past two years has taken several measures to simplify and rationalise the tax regime and improve the dispute resolution mechanisms.

"The government has targeted infrastructure construction through public investment including roads and highways, railways, and urban facilities. Public-private-partnership models in infrastructure and new financing routes have been initiated. Infrastructure is the new sunrise sector in India today," Bharti Enterprises Vice-Chairman Rakesh B Mittal said.