Goyal says Govt means business

Minister of Railways Piyush Goyal said the proposal in the Budget 2018-19 shows sensitivity to the poor and marginalized sections of the society as well as focusses on speed of project execution.

The budget seeks to keep a tab on every rupee that is to be spent by the government and is outcome-oriented, Goyal asid at the ‘Post Budget Talk’.

He stressed that the budget proposed to remove the structural impediments to attain long term growth.

It is a budget that rises above populism and puts a premium on honest investment towards building a ‘New India’, he said.

Goyal said that the government means business is evident from the fact that it made bold moves to demonetize high value currency and bring in a transformational tax reform measure by way of Goods and Services Tax (GST), knowing fully well that no government across the world won an election after having gone through the twin measures.

He said the economy was now well set to achieve a high growth path and is expected to close the current year at 6.7% and the expectation is that it will clock 7.5% in 2018-19.

This government, he said, is focused on creating job creators by empowering the people and is now looking at increase in investments on the back of honesty.

On the implementation of the world’s largest ‘National Health Protection’ scheme covering over 10 crore poor and vulnerable families up to Rs.5 lakh for secondary and tertiary treatment, Goyal said the ecosystem and the economies of scale for making the scheme a success would come.

As an example, he said, for making the scheme successful, the healthcare facilities of the organizations such as the railways and Coal India Ltd which are located in remote areas could be leveraged.

The talk was organized by The Hindu BusinessLine and SASTRA Deemed University in association with Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) on 12 Feb 2018. fii-news.com