Jaitley vows corruption-free governance, reasonable tax rates

Seeking investments to boost growth, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Thursday vowed a corruption-free governance, reasonable tax rates and non-discretionary allotment of natural resources to make it easier for companies to do business in India.

He asked the states to compete among themselves to provide most investor-friendly environment, saying ease of doing business is not merely a slogan.

"For the actions that the Centre and states are taking, there is a huge amount of public support and the onus on all of us therefore is to open our doors wide for those investments," Jaitley said here at the Resurgent Rajasthan Partnership Summit 2015.

Stating that difficulty in doing business can dis-engine investors, he said it is necessary to ensure that governance becomes corruption free and discretions were reduced to the minimum.

Jaitley said it was essential to ease the systems under which, people can choose to do business and make sure that "governance becomes completely corruption free... scope for discretion is very little".

He also underlined the need for making sure that tax rates remain at a reasonable levels "so that the rates of taxation are not so onerous or the policy of taxation is not so aggressive that it deters investors away".

The minister said that it was necessary to make sure that all facilities from capital to land to natural resources are quickly made available in a non-discretionary and non-arbitrary manner to investors.

"The ease of doing business... is not merely a slogan. It actually involves cutting down the time period between today, when all these investors have decided to invest in Rajasthan and the actual launch of their projects," Jaitley said.

Photograph: Reuters