Financial Secretary T V Somandang has been in the hot seat, working on the road map of the government reform during the Covid-19 pandemic.
In an interview, he told the Toi that the focus now needed to improve the quality of expenses, especially in health and education.
Quotes: There are criticism that some reforms initiated in recent years have been driven through without consensus and not inclusive.
Is that a fair assessment? Sometimes reforms must be done quickly.
Not to say consultation should not be done, but may not always be practically feasible to develop consensus, when you try to do it quickly.
So, 1991 is a classic case where the government needs to do certain things and they are proven to be useful.
If you see a lot of reforms that have been announced recently, they have been preceded by extensive consultation, in some cases consultation last for more than a decade.
This is a question about consensus versus consultation.
There is no complete consensus for all reforms.
In the end, the government must decide based on their assessment of the overall state welfare.
The government has followed the consultation path.
Is it more difficult to do reform now, given that some of the previous ones might be low hanging fruit? Many reforms in 1991 were difficult and they were brave.
The nature of the reform has changed because many reforms are currently not a stroke-of-pen reform.
They cannot be done by ordering.
For example, to improve the quality of public health care or education in schools or sanitation involves a process and cannot be instant.
Most of the reforms now require execution from time to time with many actors spread throughout the country – from the local government to the state and central.
It makes it more difficult.
One challenge is to get the state on board and then reform, where various instruments are being tried.
Why is only a crisis that triggers big changes, both in 1991 or IBC recently? There are certain things that are important to respond to the crisis, such as the 1991 reform, which responds to the shortcomings of acute foreign exchange.
What was done last year in the Aatmanirbhar package, there was no relationship with agriculture or labor reform and the crisis that day.
The crisis is an opportunity and the government views all things that can be done to restore growth.
But growth has not been stopped by these things, but with a pandemic.
The government has tried to encourage reform consciously and not as a jerk reaction to certain events.
What will be the main thrust area for the next five years or more? India is not a country that can make a large fiscal impulse for growth.
The biggest challenge is to improve the results of expenses we encounter at the central and state levels.
Our fiscal expenses are adequate, quality that needs to be improved.
We need to change the orientation of education to quality, not a building or teacher.
At the macro level, we have adequate numbers.
It exercises or redirects the budget both for health and education.
What about subsidies? Subsidized reform is a big challenge for us but it is a problem where we need political consensus.
I will strive to emphasize things where administrative decisions are needed.
Autonomous countries, how you balance it with certain national goals is something we tried last year.
We put certain conditions at a small part of the loan.
This allows the state to choose.
This encouragement, which has helped.