Sandeep Jajodia, the new president of the trade body ASSOCHAM, said credit off-take by corporate India would be quite low as long as the entire issue of non-performing assets, cleaning up of the banks’ balance-sheets is not resolved with a pragmatic approach and strong political will.
Jajodia welcomed the government's effort to fight corruption and black money
In his maiden speech after taking charge, Jajodia said a clear distinction should be made between the willful defaulters and those whose business ran into difficulty due to external economic factors like volatile commodity prices or even those whose commercial decision may appear to be wrong in the hindsight.
Jajodia, while lauding the efforts of the government in dealing with NPAs, said the country was faced with a situation where banks, with loads of cash, are finding it hard to lend despite lowering of interest rates. “Someone at the political leadership, has to bite the bullet since the top bank managements, despite the new RBI guidelines, are wary of taking hard decisions in terms of debt restructuring for fear of coming under the investigative scanner” he elaborated. He cautioned the government, saying, “This is a bad vicious circle, we should not allow ourselves to slip into, as the stakes are quite high for creating a huge number of jobs which is possible only through a vibrant economy built on strong consumer demand, robust manufacturing, trade and services and modernizing the Indian agriculture, integrating it well into the manufacturing of food processing.”
Jajodia welcomed the government's effort to fight corruption and black money, but said the remonetisation effort must ensure people are encouraged to spend.
The new president made a strong plea to the government to ensure that there shall not be any tax terrorism and fear psychosis among the consumers, especially of high value products and services, as also the trade channels. Government officials at all levels should be made accountable Jajodia said.
At a time when protectionism being spear-headed by the Trump Administration, Jajodia called for active engagement with the US Government. On Brexit, he said, the Indian policy makers should remain pro-active about the turn of events and how the entire Brexit deal is negotiated between the EU and Britain and fine-tune our policies accordingly.
