New Delhi: As the Narendra Modi government nears its second anniversary, industry leaders on Monday said focus should now be on building political consensus for passage of the long-pending GST (Goods and Services Tax) 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 per cent to the GDP," Godrej Group chairman Adi Godrej 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," Naushad Forbes, president of industry body CII, said in a statement.
"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," said Harshvardhan Neotia, president of another industry body Ficci.
Commending the government for its focus on ease of doing business, incentivizing 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.
