The Modi government which came to power nearly three years ago has wiped the slate clean by undoing the misdeeds of the previous UPA government and is now determined to grow faster with focus on investments, said Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Monday.

Addressing delegates at the Make in India - Karnataka conference here, Jaitley pointed out that the “last government suffered due to policy paralysis but now we have got a great opportunity to take faster economic decisions.”

“This is coming at the time when there is slowdown in the world, (and) India is getting referred to as a bright spot. For two years in a row, India has become the fastest growing economy as well. Hopefully in future, we will maintain that position,” he added.

India is looking for investments from all over the world. “We are looking for partners to set up commercial establishments which will create jobs and give additional revenues,” he added.

Stating that GST will become reality and it will be implemented in the middle of the year, he said that this will give ample opportunity for the States to grow and will lead to higher economic growth.

Jaitley said that NDA government has given priority to agriculture and rural development to remove inequality. He said that ₹3,96,000 crore has been earmarked in the Budget for development of infrastructure which paves way for attracting more investment and industrial growth.

Karnataka’s potential

He said progressive States such as Karnataka’s growth shoule be 2-3 percentage points higher than the country’s growth. “Unless the growth is more than country’s, we won’t see Karnataka realising its full potential,” he added.

Takes a dig at former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Jaitley said, “he was like a CEO hired by the shareholders. In a democracy like India, this model of CEO hired by shareholders doesn’t function and is not a suitable model.”

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