By IANS,
Kolkata : At a time when investors’ confidence in India is at an all-time low, the central government was confident that an investment climate would be restored within two to three months, said Corporate Affairs Minister Veerappa Moily Tuesday.
“The investors’ confidence is down in a big way now… the prime minister is looking into that. A core committee is also looking into this to ensure that business of investment climate is again restored. I think it would not take more than two months time,” Moily said at an event organised by the MCC Chamber of Commerce here.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has set up a four-member expert committee on GAAR (General Anti-Avoidance Rules) to prepare a fresh norm on the controversial tax provision to bring greater clarity and prepare a roadmap for its implementation. The deadline for preparing the norms is Sep 30.
“With the prime minister’s approach on both on the retrospective taxation and on the question on GAAR rules, I think within the two-three months we will be on the main track,” the minister said.
Former finance minister Pranab Mukherjee had announced the rules as part of his budgetary proposal in the 2012-13 union budget presented in parliament in March this year. However, following widespread protests from business community and political parties, he later deferred the implementation of the new tax rules by one year.
Moily informed that different ministries were currently working on a master plan for hassle-free investment in the country.
He said the plan was being worked out to put the processes like FDI clearances, closing of industries, merger and acquisitions on a fast track.
“We would like to ensure that all these things are put on a right track and fast track so that these do not take much of time for hassle-free business,” he pointed out.
Moily also said the country needed ‘independent rating agencies’ like the World Bank or Forbes for accurate judgment of business index and the central government was in the process of appointing an independent agency.
“We are working on that. I have got presentations from one or two agencies we have to depend on pertinent basic concrete fundamentals so that we can judge (business environment),” he added.
Some rating agencies recently downgraded India, which led to the projection that the country is going economically downhill.