With Modi As PM, Cut-throat Competition Among States To Attract Capital: Jaitley

Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley believes that after the Narendra Modi government was voted to power, it’s not just “cooperative federalism”, but also “competitive federalism” that is driving various Indian states.

To elucidate what has become the guiding mantra for various states, Jaitley cited how various states, irrespective of the political party ruling them, are competing with each other in organizing investors’ meets.

He was speaking at an investment meet organised by the Andhra Pradesh government in partnership with the DIPP and CII at Visakhapatnam on Sunday (10 January).

A couple of days back, he was at an investors’ meet organized by the West Bengal government.

Early next month Karnataka is organizing one such conference. This will be followed by investor meets to be organized by the Maharashtra government and Haryana government.

What Jaitley implied is that the ideology of the ruling dispensation is no longer a hindrance in seeking capital from any part of the globe for more jobs and development.

This became more commonplace and prevalent after Narendra Modi, a former Chief Minister who believed in the virtues of capital, became Prime Minister.

“In my intervention, I talked about competitive federalism when people were talking about cooperative federalism. All the states are seeing benefits of the reforms process. Capital from all over the world is being welcomed for development and jobs, by states,” he said.

Modi Government and Entrepreneurship
After the success of the Mudra scheme, which has helped around 1.73 crore small entrepreneurs, Jaitley said, “Start-up India” and “Stand-up India” are set to be huge draws.

He said how for a start-up conference in the national capital next week, requests from participation have come from “as many as 1.5 lakh people”.

The “Stand-up India” scheme, too, promises to empower a vast section of the Indian population. According to the scheme, each nationalized bank branch has to support at least one woman entrepreneur and one entrepreneur belonging to SCs / STs. Considering that there are 1.5 lakh branches across the country, a vast section of hitherto unrepresented populace would be brought into the entrepreneurial eco-system.

India: The Bright Spot
He reiterated that with the World Bank downgrading its own forecasts of global growth, and with the world expected to grow at a rate of just 2.5 to 2.9 per cent, India remained the world’s bright spot, with 7.5 per cent growth. Low oil prices and low commodity prices were something that would further benefit India.