India Today Conclave 2024: FM Nirmala Sitharaman Exclusive; $7-Trillion Indian Economy By 2030

hello everyone and welcome to the 21st edition of the India today conclave it's an absolute delight and pleasure to have all of you with us can we have a round of applause as you welcome our finance minister nirmala sitaraman the theme of this year's conclave is India's rapidly changing position in the emerging Global Order and Central to that is the strength of the Indian economy the international monetary fund has projected and I have a slide that's coming up behind your screen that India could be a $6.9 trillion economy by 2028 what's the unfinished reform agenda what more do we need to do to move with the maximum speed and purpose possible and what are the pitfalls that can derail us along the way to talk about this we're kicking off the first session at this year's conclave with our finance minister who now is one of India's most experienced Finance ministers and at this moment the oddone favorite to present a seventh budget in July potentially so Nala sitaraman G welcome to the conclave and it's an absolute pleasure to have you I also want to welcome my colleagues and co- moderators for this session anj kashia star anchor and editor and also sidat zarabi the managing editor of business the television so welcome let's get started ma'am can you begin by outlining The Unfinished reform agenda to achieve that kind of growth from where we are right now if your government gets another chance what more do you you believe needs to be done beyond the reform measures that you've already put in place for India to unlock its true potential and rise and grow at the maximum speed possible thank you India today for having me over and uh I thought uh rahul's comment about most experien was a bit tongue and cheek he he comes out as somebody who doesn't believe in it himself but never mind I love that um in no order of priority the right kind of reforms which we need to undertake now I would think in whichever sector you would want to take it will have to have greater coordination between the center the states and the urban local bodies panchayats and so on in the last 10 years my experience at least limited to my experience I can tell you you may do wonderful um futuristic reforms at the central government level and Most states understand that it benefits them as well and they do also uh in synchrony do things which are going to help both Center and states and it is only when you touch that layer the third layer you find many of them are almost getting blocked in the sense it's not an intentional Block it's more a question of they understanding what it can do for them and also trying to make sure that they can uh easily slip into that process so that up from the central government down to the pchat because after all when Industries set up their businesses they have to set it up in the ground in in the at the panchayat level so if all those great reforms are happening elsewhere and it's not really borne out in the pchat level it's not going to help at all so there has to be a lot of work done from top level in the sense of Center State and the third level uh you know elected governments so that is one thing I think across the sectors when you undertake reforms it has to have that effect of cascading down to the uh lowest level you know the Finance Minister felt maybe that that comment was Tung in cheek it wasn't I knew of fact and she is indeed one of India's most uh experienced Finance ministers now and in very August company and truly without tongue being in Chek and just stating the fact for is the odds on favorite to be back in July both of those are absolute statements of fact she's just being humble and modest and that's just the way she is on the tricky aspects of Reform so the Government tried to deal with uh Land Reform the Government tried to deal with agricultural reform both occasions the government and the Prime Minister ended up burning their hands and back ra GST reform again has been an area where progress hasn't been made Beyond where we've reached do you think those are areas that you have a philosophy or a framework to be able to navigate or will they remain just political hot potatoes um with due respects to those who protested on those I would like to say those bills when passed in the parliament you can have a thousand commentary on it saying could the debate in the rajas Sabha be held for one extra hour it would have brought in more speakers you can nitpick on those things but they were the very reforms that when in power those governments those ministers who held power at that time were all watching for they wanted the agriculture reform they wanted the Land Reform labor codes these are things when people wanted it they spoke very much about it records in the parliament show it but when you politically conveniently sitting in the opposition protest against every one of this your hypocrisy is what get what is getting exposed and as much as this election 2024 Lo Saba people see a delivering government a Visionary prime minister and many other things which this government has done I think they are also seeing how hypocritical in protesting against every good measure this government took was the current opposition people are seeing that as well so if the environment is building up for prime minister to come back it's be it's coming it's getting built up on the one hand 2/3 on what the government has done and the vision with which this government is functioning and at least a third goes to those Hypocrites who wasted the parliament's time and people are realizing we've not sent them there for it Hypocrites who spoke up in favor of some policies who are speaking against it now so it is a blend of a hypocritical opposition which has got exposed and the Fantastic work which prime minister has done during most difficult time with transparency 10 years every journalist I'm sure searched for at least one little straw of corruption you couldn't find one an with g con w you're as usual trying and I'm going to do it in English I'll try to speak in Hindi but I'll lose my um thought flow because you know I'll be searching for words in Hindi you as usual and as is typical with media and I don't blame you for it you do this Balancing Act what is Rd for you is not ravy for them come on you do not have a budgetary supp vote for some fantastic idea that you throw about and then once you get the vote you don't have money to fund that and then you go about blaming the central government which is not sought vote with you for the same RAB day but you want the central government to fund you because you had these fancy baskets of lollipops given for the people look at the example and I'm sitting here to talk politics look at the example of Karnataka a state one year ago was doing very well Global investor Summit drew the best of people to come and invest in that state because it's a fantastic State draws excellent Talent from all over the country beautifully endured and has the right environment of blend of culture industry Enterprise and everything else now what is the state of affairs in Karnataka and who is to blame and it it actually hurts me so much to say even Bengaluru City doesn't have drinking water all within a year you you've seen what a rity can do and now you want Center to fund your rity and you blame saying Center is discriminating and there is also another state which is taken us to the court and I'm quite happy to go to the court and put all the facts before the court for the mismanagement that states do I would want the media to ask more meaningful questions of those States as well stop this debate of balancing what is ravity for you is not ravity come on tell me ask them to show the budgetary statements to say I have made provision for this particular thing so I don't need newer taxes on my own people I've made budgetary provision for this I will not blame the government if it doesn't give me one Pisa extra than what the finance commission has asked me for ask such questions anun then you'll know what is ravy and what is not uh Finance Minister I want to follow this question up uh with a broader point about the north south divide uh fastest growing economy in the G20 Nations faster than any of our uh Rivals fourth largest stock market which is turbocharged right now but do you think the north south divide is a crucial uh concern that will escalate during the election uh campaigning yeah obviously because they want to escalate it because it can keep the narrative going in the direction in which they want uh the narrative to go but matter of fact this has been one of those pet themes of state level parties which think it's good to hit at the center and nobody from the center can come and defend themselves in that state for instance so when you have this debate going I grew up in a Tamil Nadu which I've heard even with the congress party in power in the center and subsequently every time there was an alliance with the um State party congress party was an alliance even then I've heard comments like meaning North prospers and South is um this you become thinner and P ER and everything uh so this kind of a narrative I've heard even Tamil Nadu even when Center was ruled by congress party it's a typical um political narrative which particularly the dravidian parties particularly the DMK has always used to give an impression that Center is not doing its due to the state and none of the ministers in the center even one or two of them who are from Tamil Nadu themselves who take it upon themselves to go and defend the center I would want to believe the center did not discriminate the states even then and even now but ministers who were part of the central government even at that time Alliance partners of the party DMK wouldn't go to Tamil Nadu and take the pains to say no Center doesn't discriminate so that narrative happily found traction but today no sorry each one of us go there to say what we are doing and therefore there are friction points in the narrative so that is a typical dravidian political narrative which believes in showing this country as being different in the South and the north being ruled by mostly or largely by non Tamil or nons South Indian language speaking people in power so it sells as an argument but that's not fair at all Madame Finance Minister as we look back at the 10 years of the Modi sarcar on the economic report card there are areas of strength and achievements and then there are some concerns I want to draw your attention to two visualizations compiled by the India Today data intelligence unit and get you to comment on your strategy to deal with these These are economic realities i w understand how you're dealing with them I'll take uh shrinking consumer spending first on your screen coming up is a visualization that Maps uh consumer spending going back to two decades so if you see uh consumer spending over the last couple of years has actually come down uh to levels below where we were a couple of decades ago do you see this as being normal there's a lot of concern in some economic circles that consumer spending is going down and why and whether beyond the big headline economic growth numbers there is underlying stress so that's one the second is to do with household savings so if you call up the visualization on household savings here as well uh there is some concern in terms terms of whether household saving which has really been one of the strengths of the Indian economy because Indians unlike more proplate consumers in the west tend to save more whether that is changing and whether that again at some level uh is representative of economic stress so if you look at those I'm sure you've had an opportunity to absorb what the trend lines are suggesting so Madame Finance Minister your sense on the concern that behind the growth numbers is an underlying stress reflect Ed and captured in these charts I'll First Take on the household savings yes the number which is shown is based on savings small savings and there are very many schemes through which we are trying to capture with better interest rates like the one which we gave in honor of women we said you uh you take up a fixed deposit before the uh 31st of March 2024 you get a higher rate of interest and many women have started uh investing money into the fixed deposit because the rate of interest was much higher than what otherwise the banks would give um so by doing these uh where the interest rate was remaining low for a long time and people didn't think it was worth putting money into the small savings schemes or the banks we had to prop that up with specified targets with higher interest rate which means we are subsidizing but what is also equally happening and which doesn't get captured in this is people today when I say people retail small people are also going to the stock markets not just going through mutual funds but also going through demac accounts which they open on their own so the actually since after 2020 you find that money is going to the stock market in the name of retail Investments have gone substantially high in fact India stands out as one of those countries where retail investors are directly going to stock market and that should also get captured and not seen as speculation it's certainly investing their savings into stock market rather than putting into savings schemes that's about savings uh if you talk about consumption there there can be a disparity and that will be a matter of my worry so that I can um see how best I can help out in consumption expenditure but consumption expenditure also depends on the items which go into the basket and when you talk to the fast moving uh Goods which are reaching out the rural areas there are dips and Rises but people are spending on Goods which are cons consumer durables as much as they used to do when days were not affected by Co earlier so I I think what is important for us is to see how in the medium term it pans out rather than get carried away by month-on-month expenditure analysis it is important to know because you'll get to seeing how it's moving but I would be uh looking at both with a larger screen before me November 21 June 22 fuel excise duty or Cinder 100 put together election manest prom Finance Minister you mentioned the stock markets and the uh and the growing uh stock market uh Equity investing card but my question is do you see any excesses building up uh in the economy are certain areas of our economy getting overheated The Regulators seem to be a little concerned they have expressed public warnings fro in the market valuation bubbles unsecured lending as the Finance Minister of India what is your view on this I'll all love the markets to play on their own because as much as all of us can observe that the ask stocks are overvalued or our stock stocks don't represent the real value what will be it I think the markets will play it out and uh we should leave it to the wisdom of the market because all of us have seen that despite huge fluctuations globally Indian Market has maintained a certain level of sanity it hasn't really gone too uh violent this way or that way so I'll place a lot of trust on the market Madam fin Minister you know I want to talk to you about two things if you look at the overall numbers for foreign direct investment and foreign portfolio investment the numbers show that we're at historic levels or we're doing much better than in the past however many economists would argue that that's not the full picture that the right way of looking at this and again I want to call two visualizations on the screen the right way of looking at this is to look at foreign direct investment and foreign portfolio investment relative to our GDP so if we were to do that conversion and have these on our screen right now so just so that everyone's on the same page the light cream represents foreign direct Investments where in 2001 if foreign direct investment was about 0.9% of the size of the GDP as a percentage it's now 0.7 so it went up in 2010 and has been a flatline curve tending downwards uh till the last numbers are available for Q3 of uh the last last year so that's foreign direct investment foreign portfolio Investments which come into the markets again is a zigzag Flatline curve not really tending upwards as a percentage of the GDP they're saying naturally if the size of the economy keeps increasing you look at the overall numbers that looks very impressive but convert it back into a percentage of the GDP and then the numbers tell their own pictures here we've gone up from 0.6 to 1.3 but whether that is enough optimal and what more can be done so how do you look at these numbers the foreign attaction to India relative to the size of the current GDP Madam Finance Minister um they are very important indicators no doubt we'll also have to place them in the context that is whether the Indian market Indian economy the macro economy are all attractive enough for foreign direct investment to come and whether for the fpis which are lot more Mercurial in their functioning whether there's enough for them to earn but that is looking at the one side of the coin that is the Indian macroeconomic situation but you'll also have to look at the global situation whether the fund is ready to come here or are they attractive markets outside despite that if they have to come what are the kind of things we need to do so when the question is asked as to what the government has to do to keep FDI consistently coming to India you'll have to every time pitch that picture against what is developing globally so if the global um situation is strong you will have to do a lot more to attract them and if the volatility is much more there then you know that you will naturally project your macroeconomic situation being stable and attract them I'm telling you the larger principle but off late India's macroeconomic consistency has has been strong and that is why you find FD coming in discussions with fund managers discussion with Sovereign funds all of whom come to India to ask as to what is it that they can get into which are the kinds of areas and so on so yes the map is important but I would think the interest in Investments coming into India is at its one of the PE Peak moments I would think because off late at least in the last 5 to 6 months we've had quite a few funds coming to India to say we are very impressed we want to continue to be here or we want to expand so I would look at that as a very strong indicator that this picture will only improve and keep growing right to apprenticeship May [Applause] pleas what do you think Madam of the right to apprenticeship act this is one of Congress is Big promises they say like we brought manrega like we brought the food Security Act we now intend to bring the right to apprenticeship act given that Unemployment uh is one of the big challenges any government faces is this a workable solution what do you think of it as finan I want to ask of you Rahul only when you think you have to have a right to so and so in the parliament past is the world going to change right to food act right to this act right no one is against rights please do ask but are you even empowered to ask for your rights so would you want to place emphasis on empowering people give them the basic facilities across the board for everybody once you bring this right and once you don't implement it which is what they did they brought all the right and kept crowing about it tell me how ineffectively they've used manrega atrocious accounts came out of their time mrea being implemented and now when it is being properly implemented particularly because of the context being covid for instance they mock at you saying ah there you go we brought the act and you don't even give us credit but you're using it extreme once in a 100e kind of a situation you use that it becomes a you know Blue Book every time you want to quote when you give them enough support to empower them and they are in a position to do their own and I was very glad to hear Mr Puri talk about dignity and not talk about poverty what does that mean yes talk about poverty deliver on removing people from poverty but do it with dignity intact I was so glad to hear that and that's what empowering is all about and that is exactly what Prime Minister Modi has done give houses for everybody who's in that you know below poverty line make sure they don't have to run Helter Skelter use technology to say wherever they are they can get their food qua and so on so right to Skilling isn't that what government is doing today Skilling is happening all over the country not just for you know those usual skills late mission suing machine Chala B no even on AI even to use technology imagine the rural environment today and all of us talk about women women's rights sorry Rahul I'll have to take a minute on this who is being trained to use drones in The Villages and for all of us who speak about gender justice and for all of us who want more women's participation in labor force what is Prime Minister Modi doing to the women in The Villages they are the ones who are going to operate the drones and what drones which are going to uh spray um fertilizer which are going to measure the extent of uh the land cultivating a certain particular crop which is also going to look at areally what is the health of the crop in rural India for women to hold those instruments and go about doing these job does it have a big impact on the mindset itself so you're doing things making sure that you will ensure people are trained for skills what is this vishak Karma Y where people who are doing their jobs with bare hands or with minimum tools you're giving them better Market access better training them better Modern equipments and making sure that they will get a toolkit worth 15,000 rupees 500 rupees during the Skilling no Rights Act business 500 rupees per day during the training uh session so you you are able to see what impact this vishwak karma is happening is having on the ground and then now say no no I'm bringing a right for it no right in the parliament no passing of any law it's happening in the ground let's talk about delivering things we put everything in the right bracket and never deliver and we can always speak about I given the right but youve not delivered before she became Finance Minister Nala sitar most of you remember used to be a highly pugnacious spokesperson of the BH janata party as Finance Minister she puts on a more sophisticated Financial afar it's at moments like these that uh the political the political boxes the gloves come on and then she's throwing some political punches so thank you for that uh Madame finance minister sister he's ensuring by saying a thank you that I don't come up with one more on him mam Finance Minister recently we got to know the identity of the donors in the Electoral bonds and as I was scrutinizing the list there are a couple of questions that I'm sure are in the minds of everyone here a the fact that the BJP gets the large majority of the funding which can be partly explained by the fact that you're the party in power and everybody wants to be with whoever they think can win but there are two other questions one that the country's major corporate groups and I don't want to name any one or two but the big funders who you would imagine are the ones who are spending their money because it's now through white channels are not on that list they're not amongst the major donors and I'm wondering okay if those guys are funding how's that money coming and how are they funding and why is it not through white channels the second question Madam finance minister is this that out of the 30 top funders 14 corporates had some kind of investigative agency chasing them for some case which would lead everyone sitting here to wonder whether this is some kind of a buy or sell some protection if these agencies are chasing you fund through the Electoral Bond route in the hope that you can buy yourself some protection now the Modi government's promise was we will not let this happen no way no crony capitalism and yet the data seem seems to be telling a story which leads to many questions Madam Finance Minister I think you based yourself on huge assumptions that the money is given after the Ed raid happened for all you know the money was given earlier and in spite of that we went knocking at the doors am I making sense no what if the companies gave the money and after that we still went and knocked at their doors through Ed is that a probability or not that's an assumption which Rahul has made that Ed went and knocked at their doors they wanted to save themselves and therefore they came up with the funds one second assumption in that itself is are you sure that they've given it to BJP they probably gave it to the regional parties what makes you assume so many things and build a narrative the government has given an the state bank has done its job as per the orders given by the state supreme court follow now you do any hair splitting on it but do it without assumptions of this nature Ed and therefore they gave you but the rest of them didn't the rest of them have given God knows to who which ad sent was sent to them and they have also given it I think you know smart hardworking research will will do good rather than Lacy journalism uh Finance Minister uh a quick followup on this uh one do you think uh loss making firms and shell companies should be barred from political funding and the second question that is related to this is that why is there so much doubt about corporate funding don't companies and businesses if you have a right to vote we also should be having a sort of right to finance elections of our choice leading extortion I'm not ruling out Regional parties or Congress or BJP anyone electoral bonds and also addressing your s your question is [Music] fully verdict is come SBI is got to be submitting it is submitted 100% and let us let us just recall what my predecessor when he brought this El electoral bonds Arun said account that is why electoral bonds monies are going into the accounts from account to White it's not a perfect system but you moved from almost a wild uh law unto oneself kind of a situation where everybody did what they wanted so we moved from that to the system this is certainly not perfect but one bit better now that's not it fine in the wisdom of Supreme Court they thought this is not the way to go about it sorry all right I'm not criticizing the Supreme Court's judgment but it is an analysis which runs in my mind and I'm sure all of us are thinking about it so a system which was not perfect from a system which was completely imperfect was brought in consciously brought in saying at least one aspect of it will be cleaner well it's not approved by the Supreme Court all right so then I'm not commenting on it it's not a headline for Rahul to say Finance Minister said at the new government there will be I'm not saying anything I'm only saying if at all whenever something comes we have to introduce elements of lessons that we've taken from this to make sure there is a transparency that transparency will have to be progressively better than each earlier system Madame Finance Minister we're coming to the yeah sorry yes sidar you are right why not if corporates can fund they can fund but of course under which scheme of things which law all that will have to be worked out nobody is saying no parties cannot be funded but loss making and uh sh company yes there are issues on those sort of things which of course will have to be looked into you can't afford to have shell companies or you know loss making companies that's a very valid point Madam Finance Minister we are coming to the close of the first session of the India today conclave and before we end I have one final question you know when we've spoken to you at the peak of the crypto hype You' said you don't believe in the crypto asset this is pure speculation I just want to call this visual I ization which goes back a few years looks at the crash which is when a lot of people sitting here would have imagined that the crypto story is over this was speculation this is like tulips this was never real and then VOA the Cockroach bounces back now when you look at this chart now more and more serious Traders and firms are looking at crypto as an asset saying if it survived so many Falls there is some underlying resilience which even if doesn't make sense simplistically but obviously he's there which is why it's kind of bounced back and now given the fact that crypto Supply is also coming down in the context of how Market fundamentals are moving at this moment is that leading the government also potentially to reassess its position on cryptos reassess its position its position has always been this that assets created in the name of crypto can be assets for trading assets for speculation assets for moneymaking assets for many other things we hadn't regulated them then we haven't regulated them even now but they cannot be currencies is what I've always held and that's the government of India position also currencies are to be issued with the fat of the government or the Central Bank of the day so that is a different story so if they're coming back this Resurgence that is the asset which is being created for speculation or for trading or for whatever purpose and it is still unregulated in India and that is why we thought it fit to raise it in the G20 Forum because as it is so technology driven and it will have a bearing on crossborder payments and so on if one country regulates and others don't it'll be a easy way of moving money uh round tripping or funding drugs or even terrorism and so on so we wanted to create a kind of a framework work by taking it to the level of G20 it has been very well received and I'm sure there will be some framework emerging with that ladies and gentlemen we come to the end of the first session of the India today conclave one of the critiques frankly of the state of India's Democratic play at this moment is the allegation that ministers in the government don't take tough questions and that journalists don't ask tough questions I think the first session of the conclave should whip your appetite and give you the sense that Madam Finance Minister didn't have anything about what to ask what not to ask questions that could potentially be asked were asked and she answered them throwing a few punches as bravely as was possible thank you very much we appreciate the cander and we appreciate your presence Madame Finance Minister can we have a round of applause for finance minister nirmala sitaraman for setting the tone in the stage for this the 21st edition of the India today conli thank you nimmala g thank you ladies and gentlemen as we raise a warm Applause for The Honorable Minister ma'am would you stay up on stage for just a minute ma'am ma'am just one minute if you could stay up on stage and accept a small token of our appreciation I'd like to call upon uh executive editor and chief Vice chairperson the India Today group Miss Kip Puri to come up on stage and present a small token of our appreciation to The Honorable Minister ladies and Gentlemen please raise a warm Applause for Union Minister Finance corporate Affairs nirmala sitar [Music] [Music] [Music] on

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Id: LW6g1LuqdWU

Length: 43min 32sec (2612 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 15 2024