Navika Kumar: Being a woman and making it to this level. Many, many congratulations. You are a beacon of hope for women of this country.
Nirmala Sitharaman: Thank you, Navika, and thank you for giving me this opportunity to interact with you and also to reach out to your viewers. It is a good opportunity and I am very grateful.
Navika Kumar: Did you have the temptation that this is the budget ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, toh kuch populist measures le and did you have to resist that urge?
Nirmala Sitharaman: No, actually, I think right from the very beginning, when the preparations for this budget started, honourable PM was very clear and the guidance which we had was very clearly to give a direction towards the next 5 years, 10 years and so on.
And also, to be continuing with that momentum which we brought in, that it should be a transparent budget which should speak for itself and there can never be anything which is put under the carpet or kept outside of the budgetary process.
So, that was the guidance I have received and right from the beginning, our team worked on that principle. There was never a second thought whether it should have something as a pre-election bonanza. Nothing. In fact, I did remark, I think, in one earlier programme somewhere that it is going to be an interim budget and there is not going to be any spectacular announcements. I did say that once before.
Navika Kumar: So, the question many again levelled the criticism is 10 years of UPA compare it with the 10 years of the Modi sarkar. Group rate better in the UPA sarkar than it is now. If you look at the per capita income growth, again the UPA years better than the NDA years or the Modi sarkar years. How do you respond to that criticism?
Nirmala Sitharaman: It is not a well-thought-through criticism at all. Although, the details I will explain somewhere else, but the fact remains after a pandemic, for the economy to have dipped and then risen back and there was also these comments saying, K shaped recovery hai.
Navika Kumar: Well, I hope Mr P Chidambaram is listening to your response to his criticism and his statements in a press conference held on Budget Day. But let me ask you, you have emphasised on discipline, fiscal discipline target of 5.1% of the GDP. Do you think you will be able to sustain? The fact of the matter is that you have given the direction to battery-operated, green energy vehicles, research and development in the country, capital investment in infrastructure, skill development. But again, people come up in infrastructure investments. The private sector has lagged behind. Most of the expenditure has been by the public sector, by the government, which has led to a high debt ratio to the GDP, which could be a red flag for the economy and on the skill side while you may say you have trained a lot of people, only 40%, less than 40% of the people have got placements or have got employed. So, employment and participation of the private sector and the high debt ratio to the GDP, are these the red flag areas for the economy?
Nirmala Sitharaman: First of all, this debt to GDP matter is being spoken conveniently by cherry-picking data. Look at the globe, look at the countries, even developed countries, some of them and their debt to GDP ratios are stunningly different from ours, in the sense they are even 300% more.
Japanese, for instance, are also very high. Many developed economies have well crossed the acceptable level of debt to GDP and in that context, for us to be somewhere in the range of 80 and also be in the range coming downwards, to raise the red flag and say, is this a dangerous situation and it is not a government which borrowed for no reason.
Post COVID, particularly because many such compensation had to be borrowed for and also the states had to take that load and many of our own programmes had to be funded without stopping or cutting down the budget on many welfare schemes.
If the government had to go through that period when your revenue generation had almost come to a halt, how would you expect the government to function without borrowing? It will borrow. But it was done with responsibility and that is why it stays where it is.
So, I have given you the comparison between a developed country and an emerging market country like ours and also showing how we are handling debt. Even today, making sure that your fiscal discipline is not lost and making sure that we will reorganise ourselves and the borrowing that we are announcing is far lesser than what the market expected us to do.
So, on debt, borrowing, we have been absolutely responsible, that is my first response. The second you talked about skilling. All over the country, industry is today looking at a complete resetting of its business models. Most of them are looking at how artificial intelligence is going to bring in greater efficiencies. They want to recruit people, but there is also this concern that many of them have still got to acquire a lot of artificial intelligence-related skills with which they can be readily recruited.
So, there is a shift happening. At this time, to pin our argument on one particular set of data or on the other particular set of data is only going to give you a partial picture. So, I would suggest that even as all of us are equally concerned about our youth wanting to have greater skills, such skills with which they can get into the market, we should equally accommodate for a period where the readjustment is happening, both for industry and for the labour force as well, for which the government is as I said in the last budget that we will establish three institutes of excellence for greater study and work in artificial intelligence.
So, our attention is there. We want to help industry also with the Nasscom to make sure that they give us the kind of skill sets, curriculum for it, and also to make sure that kind of a training is provided. So, activities are happening with the advice of the concerned industry itself. The other point that you did raise that industry, are they coming forward for investment? Is it happening or not? I would say industry, first of all, it took some time for them because again going back to the fragile five economy time, was not there a twin balance sheet problem? Industries balance sheet, banks balance sheet were all suffering because banks were made to extend loans on telephone orders from somewhere and they extended for fear of authority.
Many of them could not even get the money back and the companies, many of them who wanted capital, who wanted infusion of money, could not get it from the bank because telephones did not go for them, they went for others. End of the day, these companies took their time and with us coming also with favourable interest rates for newer establishments.
Industries have shown that they have corrected their balance sheet, they have also started new ventures, benefitting from the lower corporate tax that we had brought in. Now investments from private sector is happening. Happening possibly in the newer areas that you talked about. Green hydrogen, electric ecosystem for EVs. Also, looking at materials, rare earths. So, private sector’s investment is happening, happening in newer areas and with greater gusto.
Navika Kumar: So, let me ask you, the political indications that came from the budget, a white paper on the UPA years, do you think it is even relevant 10 years later to bring in a white paper on the UPA years other than just a little bit of politics ahead of elections because if there needed to be a white paper, it probably needed to be put out in the first year of the Modi sarkar after taking a sense of what had happened in the 10 previous years, but to bring it 10 years later do you think it is even relevant or is this just petty politics?
Nirmala Sitharaman: I am so happy you asked this question. It is absolutely relevant. It is absolutely relevant 10 years later because, and I am glad even in 2015-16 honourable PM in a public interview to a television channel said it. There is a lot of call for me to come up with a white paper on the state of finances which was inherited by me for instance, PM said, and said lot of knowledgeable people have been telling me that I should come up with a white paper to state what we have inherited but I will put the interest of the nation first and not do it now. He did not say anything more. He said doing it now would certainly shatter the investor’s confidence and would also make people of India feel shaken up. Their trust and faith would be lost in the systems. He said that far. Then, now, with us having done a comparable 10-year period and during which we had to pull out the economy from that mire, the fragile five situation, and having brought it to the state where not fragile five, we are reaching probably within a year or two globally third largest economy. So, with authority and with a sense of responsibility, we will be able to say it now because we have proven to the world, proven to our own people that institutions and also restoring the Indian economy back to its good health have all happened. So, we want to say it now.
Navika Kumar: Let me ask you, politics, if you are saying you are doing it with the purpose of responsibility, the fact is that the opposition ruled states have absolutely no confidence in the centre. Mamata Banerjee has gone on a strike. She has done a dharna. She has written a letter to the prime minister yesterday that the finance ministry is withholding money that is due to states like hers, like West Bengal. The issue raised by the finance ministry is no utilisation certificates and she says nothing is pending. Why is there just so much confrontation between the central government and the federal governments in states, especially ruled by the opposition?
Nirmala Sitharaman: I do not think there is a confrontation. It is more establishing the rule of law. Parliament of India passes and approves a certain scheme, the yojana, and when the moneys are sent for the state to utilise for that scheme, if they rebrand it, if they bring in objectionable things which the CAG pulls out, saying I am sorry, you have given it for people who are not eligible. CAG says no, you have given it for people who do not exist. Are they not critical criteria on the basis of which the centre is duty-bound because we answer in the parliament, to tell the states, what is this which the CAG has said? Would you do some correction and come back? They sit over it, they deny it, and then when they try to correct it, they do not do a complete job of it and then they sit over it again and then send the utilisation certificate after two full years or two-and-a-half years and then keep pointing out, saying it is pending from them, without saying we went wrong. And it was right of the centre to say, what was approved in the parliament, you should implement it as per the letter and spirit of what was approved. You do not rebrand it, you do not spend it on people who are not eligible, you do not then argue with everybody and say this is how I will do it, but you will have to release it. No, sorry, I will have to answer in the parliament. How will I release it for a programme which is not approved by the parliament? So, if these questions are asked in a way, speaking as they say, truth to power, no, it is not like that. It is confrontation. Centre is stopping. You are doing wrong.
Navika Kumar: Truth to power can be done by people who are not in power. People like us can question truth to power.
Nirmala Sitharaman: You can, but would not.
Navika Kumar: But you are the union finance minister. Your stating or giving any dictates to a chief minister, it is not truth to power.
Nirmala Sitharaman: …because you media do not ask the truth to power question to those people. You keep asking us.
Navika Kumar: We are boycotted by those.
Nirmala Sitharaman: I am asking through you, is it not true that it was rebranded? Is it not true that you tried putting names of people who do not exist in the villages? Is it not true that your utilisation certificates came so late sometimes? And when you rebrand it and launch it to your favour, we will have to just sit and watch.
Navika Kumar: There is also statement that came from Mr DK Suresh, Member of Parliament from the Congress Party, who said, southern states contribute so much to the tax kitty and they get nothing in return because everything is redirected to the northern states, obviously hinting at your stronghold areas in the Hindi heartland. And he said that it is possibly time now for southern states to join together and make a separate country. How do you respond to a statement of that kind?
Nirmala Sitharaman: We completely condemn this statement. Come what may, whatever be the context and this is an honourable member in the parliament and he is a sitting member of the Lok Sabha. Has he raised this question in the Lok Sabha ever? Has he got replies from the ministers? And if he had the data with him, would he say that his apprehension was wrong? The formulation for sharing revenue is given by the Finance Commission, how much goes to which state and when does it go? We follow that to the last cross of the T and dot of the I. If I violated even one day by one hour, ask me. But even, let us for a moment think that no, probably there was something which is not given, would you then call for a separation of southern states from the Union of India?
Did not he swear on the Constitution when he entered the parliament? Even before contesting an election, you expect it to swear on the oath and then after winning and then after coming into the Lok Sabha, has the sitting member forgotten it? And he is no less than the brother of the deputy chief minister. Coming from the state to which the party’s All India president, Shri Mallikarjun Kharge ji comes from. And if this is the statement, you think it is right? It is wrong on every count. Southern states get their due and from yesterday, since after the statement was made by honourable member DK Suresh, social media is abuzz with data coming from government sources, both Karnataka Government and All India, about which state is getting what and how much is being contributed by which state.
If that is the argument, first of all, then let me ask, within Karnataka, Kalyana Karnataka does not get enough money. Bengaluru generates a lot of money. Can then Bengaluru say, I am sorry, we want to be away from Karnataka. We are not getting enough money from Karnataka’s revenue. Can this kind of a talk be encouraged? Karnataka, Bengaluru contributes a lot. If money is being taken for Kalyana Karnataka or Chitradurga or not so developed areas, will then the Bengaluru citizens ask, oh, we want to be out of Karnataka because we are the ones who are generating money. It is going to Chitradurga. Is this the way country is governed? And is this what a responsible member of parliament can speak? And then to suggest, I am sorry, what? Separate from India? I thought we are all sitting here in the parliament remembering the constitution and unity of India. Absolutely condemnable statement. And if the Congress party does not pull up this member, apologise to the people of India and the Congress President and also the former president are all sitting quiet. Earlier, when we used to say Congress is today aligned and more aligned with the tukde tukde gang, this is what it means. India ko tukde tukde karo, issi raste pe chal rahi hai Congress. Tell me if there has been a responsible pulling up of action there on that member. Has anybody apologised for the statement this man made?
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