Don’t Have The Luxury Of Being A Former Finance Minister, Jaitley Responds To Yashwant Sinha 

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Thursday took a dig at predecessors Yashwant Sinha and P Chidambaram, who have criticised his handling of the Indian economy which recently slipped to its slowest pace of growth in three years.

Responding to criticism by both Sinha and Chidambaram, Jaitley on Thursday he does not have the luxury of being either a former finance minister or a former finance minister-turned-columnist to ignore the “policy paralysis” that took place during the previous United Progressive Alliance regime.

He said he had some very distinguished predecessors including a former President (Pranab Mukherjee) and a former Prime Minister (Manmohan Singh) and the other predecessors have “decided to act in concert”.

Being a former finance minister “I can conveniently forget a policy paralysis (during UPA-II). I can conveniently forget the 15 percent NPAs of 1998 and 2002 (during Sinha's term as finance minister). I can conveniently forget the $4 billion reserve left in 1991 and I can switch over and change the narrative,” Jaitley said at a book launch function. While the first reference was for Sinha, the second was for Chidambaram.

Without taking names, Jaitley called Sinha a job applicant at 80 years who has forgotten his record as finance minister and is commenting on people rather than policies. Taking a cue from the title of the book he was releasing, Jaitley said perhaps the book could have been better titled as “India@70, Modi@3.5 and a job applicant @80”.

Yashwant Sinha, in an article in the Indian Express, headlined I Need To Speak Up Now, had criticised Jaitley over the state of the economy, and slammed the current government’s decision to demonetise old high-value currency notes and roll out the Goods and Services Tax.

Chidambaram endorsed Sinha’s views on Jaitley and the economy in a Twitter post on Wednesday: “Yashwant Sinha speaks Truth to Power. Will Power now admit the Truth that economy is sinking?”

Also Read: Like Father, Unlike Son: Yashwant Sinha’s Son Hails ‘New Economy’

Jaitley said that the government has, in fact, brought down the fiscal deficit and the current account deficit, and managed to maintain the rupee at an appropriate level.

GST Collections Enough To Compensate States

Jaitley said that GST collections for July and August have been along expected lines, and the central government would be able to compensate states for any losses incurred in the first two months of the rollout of the indirect tax regime.

“As a base year of 2015-16, we had to give two hikes of 14 percent each to the states, and for both the months (July and August), with some part of the compensation cess, we are well within that figure,” he said. He had “never imagined” that the government could reach a break-even point for the states within the first 2-3 months, Jaitley added.

The government is trying to address the teething problems of GST, especially the compliance burden for micro, small, medium scale enterprises, the finance minister said. Nearly 95 percent of GST collected comes from 4 lakh assessees, while 60 lakh pay the remaining 5 percent, and take time to file returns due to compliance burden, he pointed out.

Direct tax collections have increased 15.7 percent year-on-year as on date, and the so-called slowdown being talked about by some people has not impacted the tax mop-up, Jaitley asserted.