Govts can’t reform till leadership is determined: FM Arun Jaitley

Finance minister Arun Jaitley, who received the ET Award for Business Reformer of the Year for overseeing India’s biggest policy changes in decades, said credit went to the entire government and in particular Prime Minister Narendra Modi for leading from the front.

“Governments can’t reform till the leadership is determined. And obviously, finance ministers can’t reform till they have a Prime Minister with a reformist mind,” he said in his acceptance speech.

“Fortunately, India has a prime minister who is hands-on on some of these issues.” Jaitley received the award from Vice-President Venkaiah Naidu at a glittering ceremony on Saturday evening attended by the elite of India Inc.


Key recent reforms include the goods and services tax (GST) and the insolvency law.

“If you are in government and your policy making is being approved, really the credit lies with the whole government,” he said.

“Therefore, the very determination— can we have an India which is free from political corruption, can we have world-class infrastructure, can we have a very high level of investment into rural India? Can we complete the unfinished reforms of formalising the economy in a greater way? And can we, in each of these areas, whether it is taxation reforms, or digitisation of the economy?”

Jaitley is widely seen as the architect of GST, successfully building a consensus among the states on the landmark tax reform. He said it was all due to Modi’s leadership that GST was put in place.