Top 10 quotes of Arvind Panagariya as Vice-Chairman of Niti Aayog

New Delhi: Noted Indian-American economist Arvind Panagariya has resigned as Vice-Chairman of Niti Aayog.

Panagariya, who has been on leave from Columbia University to work at the Niti Aayog, said in his letter that his leave was due to expire on August 31 and it was not possible to extend it, a senior official said.

Here are top 10 quotes of Arvind Panagariya as Vice-Chairman of Niti Aayog.

1) Demonetisation

"If you are asking that demonetisation is the last step to curb corruption, then I will say no. I think more actions will be taken, but in terms of taking action against the existing black money and also in changing the roles, and the policy regime in such a way that future accumulation of black money is also discouraged.... So we need to do both."

2) GST

"Till date everybody was coming with assertions as to why the GST has not been implemented yet. Now, when it is about to be rolled out then they are saying that the date should be carried forward. So, I think we should definitely move ahead in this regard. This Bill, I have no hesitation in conceding, is a collective property."

3) Jobs

"Our labor force, employed in mass manufacturing industries such as clothing and leather sector, has the capability to do a much better job than robots."

4) Taxation on Farm Income

"80 percent of rural areas are connected to agriculture and we are talking about doubling farmers' income. How can we talk about taxing farmers income?" 

5) Banks

"Immediately, I don`t see any plans to create a bad bank. In the three-year agenda, we suggested that let us do it through private sector asset reconstruction companies (ARCs) instead of bad bank." 

6) Indian Economy

"India will return to be the fastest growing major economy in the first quarter (April-June) of 2017-18. If we see 2016-17 fiscal year growth figure, we are ahead of China. On quarterly basis, we will regain the status in the current quarter."

7) Employment

"We have serious problem with the labor bureau data...A high level task force to compute data on employment situation recently had two meetings." 

8) Air India's Privatisation

"I think really where Air India stands now, it is almost a matter of existence. The debt is already about Rs 52,000 crore (and) we are adding of Rs 4,000 crore debt every year so this is simply not sustainable."

9) Poverty Elimination

"While rural areas need to be developed sustainability, migration shouldn't be treated negatively." 

10) Economic Reforms

"Government has taken lots of reform measures. Our FDI is now around USD 60 billion. In the next two years -- 2018-19 and 2019-20 -- we will get to the 8 percent growth trajectory."