Arun Jaitely’s 70th birth anniversary today: Here’s looking at 5 major reforms under him as India’s Finance Minister

New Delhi: Arun Jaitely 70th birth anniversary today: Late finance minister Arun Jaitely would have turned 70 today. Arun Jaitley, born on December 28, 1952, became the Union Cabinet Minister for Finance in the 16th Lok Sabha when the Narendra Modi-led BJP government came to power in 2014. The Bharatiya Janata Party stalwart died on 24 August 2019 after a long battle with illness.

Arun Jaitley remained the Finance Minister of the country during both the tenure of the BJP government between May 2014 – 2018 and August 2018 – January 2019. The 66-year-old leader was a key party strategist. He played a pivotal role in banning triple talaq and pushing major economic legislations such as the Goods and Services Tax (GST). A lawyer by profession, he has been one of the most important leader in the Modi Cabinet from 2014 to 2019 and often acted as the chief troubleshooter for the government. He held the portfolios of Finance, Defence, Corporate Affairs, Commerce and Industry and Law and Justice in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Narendra Modi governments.

The veteran leader, who held several important portfolios in his political career spanning over four decades, will be remembered for his achievements when he was at the helm of the Finance Ministry. Here is looking at 5 major reforms that were being made during Arun Jaitely's tenure as the Finance Minister of India

Goods and Services Tax

Arun Jaitley’s major contribution as the finance minister was the roll-out of the GST reforms. GST, the historic tax reform was introduced on the 1st of July 2017. Before 1 July 2017, Indian indirect tax regime was highly fragmented. Centre and States were separately taxing goods and services. There were many taxes like excise duty, service tax, VAT, CST, purchase tax, entertainment tax etc. GST subsumed 17 large taxes and 13 cesses. With uniform tax on supplies of goods and services, India turned into one market.

Demonetisation

On 8th November 2016, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced demontisation which pushed Rs 500 and Rs 1000 denomination notes out of circulation. Jaitley had once said that the larger purpose of demonetisation was to move INDIA from a Tax Non-compliant society to a compliant society.  This necessarily involved the formalisation of the Economy and a blow to the black money.

Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code

Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 (IBC) was approved by both Houses of Parliament in May, 2016. IBC establishes a unified framework for the administration of insolvency and bankruptcy proceedings for companies, partnership firms, and individuals.

Amalgamation of Rail Budget with Union Budget

The Union Cabinet had in 2016 decided to merge the Railway Budget with the General Budget, thus ending the 92-year-old tradition of having a separate Railway Budget. Arun Jaitley became the first Finance Minister in 2017, presenting the unified Budget for 2017-18. Following the merger of Union Budget with Railway budget, the Railways does not have to pay dividend to the central government though it would still get gross budgetary support from the exchequer. As far as the salary and pension bill of Railway employees is concerned, it remains the responsibility of the national transporter as there is no change in the existing practice.

Change in date of Union Budget

Another change that the Union Budget 2017-18 saw was that for the first time the date of presentation was advanced by nearly a month, besides co-opting the Railway Budget into it. The government was in favour of advancing the Budgetary exercise so that it could be completed before March 31 and expenditure on public-funded schemes could begin from April 1.