Centre should be cautious in ports' surplus land treatment: Arvind Virmani

KOLKATA: The Centre needs to be cautious regarding the treatment of surplus land while moving towards coporatisation of state-owned ports, said a senior economist.

"It is a big step to tackle inefficiency and corruption. But, the government must be very cautious on the surplus land while coporatisation, which can invite lot of controversies," Arvind Virmani, former Chief Economic Advisor and Principal Advisor in the Planning Commission, said at an AIMA event.

Unless the surplus land was ensured for port use, the land may be kept with the trust and not with a corporatised port, Virmani suggested.

He said if the Centre was able to implement 70 per cent of the budget announcements on reforms, most of which were institutional, then it would be a good job.

The economist appreciated steps like introducing auction mechanism of asset allocation, merging Foward Market commission with SEBI, to bring bankruptcy law and others.

Virmani said to increase ten per cent in the devolution of the divisible pool of resources to states was something in the right direction.

Replying to city-based industrialist Sanjay Budhia's question on GST, he said it was a revolutionary change in taxation.