Saturday, Dec 14, 2002
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By Our Special Correspondent
Addressing a special session during the course of the 75th Annual General Meeting of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) here, Mr. Singh lamented the fact that most of the attention on the consultation papers issued by the taskforces on direct and indirect taxes had focused on the proposed rates and the `most important'' aspect of computerising and modernising the tax administration had been ignored. "The issues that confront us are far too complex and the potential we have is too great to be reduced to endless arguments about percentage changes in the incidence of tax or interest rates. There are vast spaces in our economic life today that need focussed and serious attention, innovative ideas and rapid technological progress,'' the Minister said. Mr. Singh said the Government was considering, for the first time ever, an outsourcing of bureaucratic functions and it was more so difficult as the Revenue Department was involved. "India is a powerhouse now of software solutions, of innovative approaches to computerisation. We are known the world over for the excellence of our pilotised software. I would like to be swamped with solutions, suggestions and criticism of how to modernise the tax administration faster, more efficiently with least inconvenience to the citizens. For the issue is quite simple: budget exercises alone will not really bring about any remarkable changes in our tax-GDP ratios. What can make the difference is modernisation of the tax collection machinery and a complete evasion of irritants that accompany this interface of official and the taxpayer.'' Terming the Indian economy as a "continental economy, very complex, very dynamic,'' Mr. Singh said the debate on economic policies and management of the economy should not be restricted to the annual budget and the three months preceding it. "The economy is too serious a matter to be limited to the budget-centric process in which we focus on it for a few weeks in a year... It is too serious a business to be kept entirely as the preserve of any one segment — captains of industry, mandarins of high finance, practitioners of theory, statisticians or my ilk of the political class... The first security is economic security, from that others flow. That is why it cannot and should not be condemned to a budget-specific attention span,'' the Minister said. About the future tasks, the Finance Minister said the need was to "locate and situate ourselves in a landscape in which knowledge drives industry, powers production, fuels productivity and competition.'' In this context, he called upon industry to focus on the traditional areas of the economy along with the `frontiers of tomorrow.' The other challenges were to give agriculture its required focus along with water management and housing and tourism that create employment.
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