New Delhi | 26th November 2019: SKOCH Group is organising nation’s first of its kind economic dialogue to discuss, debate and recommend to the government on achieving short-term to medium-term growth goals. “In a pursuit to put the Indian economy on a higher growth trajectory, we have garnered the brain-power of top economic minds in the country to delve on their intellectual wisdom to articulate a knowledge-based authoritative narrative,” said Sameer Kochhar, Chairman, SKOCH Group. It will be our endeavor to suggest steps needed to be taken to accelerate growth, added Kochhar.
India Economic Forum is being organised on 29th November 2019 at the Constitution Club of India, New Delhi. It is going to witness the largest gathering of leading economists, taxation experts, eminent industry captains, think tanks, academia, and dignitaries from the states and central government. These include:
- Mr. N K Singh, Chairman 15th Finance Commission
2. Dr. Bibek Debroy, Chairman, Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister
3. Dr. K V Subramanian, Chief Economic Adviser, Government of India
4. Dr. V Anantha Nageswaran, Part-time Member, Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister
5. Dr. Rathin Roy, Director NIPFP
6. Ms. Shubhada Rao, Chief Economist, Yes Bank
7. Mr. Gopal Krishna Agarwal, National Spokesperson – Economic Affairs, Bhartiya Janata Party
8. Dr. Vinod K Paul, Member, NITI Aayog
The ‘India Economic Forum’ will deep dive into the macroeconomic essentials of growth and employment; completing tax reforms by rationalizing personal income tax and GST; assess the state of state finances and the impact of new terms of reference for the 15th Finance Commission.
There are schemes that have performed brilliantly well and are changing the rural economic and development landscape. The Forum will take note of and learn from successful schemes such as Ayushman Bharat, Swachh Bharat, Ujjwala Yojana as well as the Rural Transformation, which is underway. It would also recommend ways to scale these further, converge more schemes and undertake drastic digital re-engineering on services delivery. It would try to highlight initiatives like Aspirational Districts whose good performance and impact may be hiding in plain sight.
“Financing via market borrowings is slated to go up. Debt liabilities rose through 2016-19 and are likely to remain around 25% of GDP in 2019-20, making sustainability of debt the main fiscal challenge. ‘India Economic Forum’ will address some of the key issues such as the state of the states’ finances, the impact of new terms of reference for the 15th Finance Commission on center-state fiscal relations and states’ fiscal challenges in the light of the ongoing economic slowdown,” said Kochhar.
Responding to slow growth, the government announced cuts in corporate taxes and the taxes for new manufacturing companies. This path-breaking reform will boost corporate profitability and improve the sentiment, which is a necessary condition for reversing the economic slowdown. The Forum will attempt to complete tax reforms with impactful discussion on immediate corrections needed in the GST rates and collection system, GSTN based bill discounting be leveraged for better availability of credit, digital MNCs be taxed more efficiently in India, OECD model-a viable option, etc.
