Mr. Anand Sharma, MP and Deputy Leader of the Opposition in Rajya Sabha, has declared that the Government and the Opposition have engaged in a constructive manner on various occasions in the recent past. “We have lent our support for passage of some of the key bills in the Parliament recently. We feel that it is extremely important for the Government and the Opposition to work together. And this is most imperative to assure that the aspirations of our young population are met. About two third of our population is below 35 years of age, which is a massive 800 million people. It is for this youth to dream and for us to work towards the fulfillment of their dreams,” he said while addressing FICCI’s 88th Annual General Meetinghere . Mr. Sharma said, “We have been the real authors of GST and we have put across some very genuine concerns. The Opposition is ready to debate with the Government on this.
The country will have a GST and there is no doubt about that. “ He said that at this juncture, there is a need for policies that reflect continuity, predictability and stability, which at present is being threatened. “Merely rebranding and repackaging of policies would not help the economy which at present is sputtering,” he added. The present Government, Mr. Sharma said, needs to decentralize and delegate, in order to meet its claim of improving the governance situation. He said, “There is a need to undertake a realistic appraisal of where we stand today in terms of our economic situation. If we look at the GDP number there has been only a marginal improvement in growth if go by the new base year numbers. Private investments remain weak and credit offtake has witnessed a significant decline. Issue of banks and related NPAs remains a major concern. On the external front, our exports have been on a downtrend for twelve consecutive months and we are nowhere close to meeting our export target. These numbers depict the hard reality and we should not be misled into believing what is conflicting with the realities.”