Huge curiosity among investors regarding India, says Jaitley

Finance minister Arun Jaitley on Tuesday said there is huge curiosity and interest especially among domestic and foreign investors regarding India and the opportunity cannot be missed.

Finance minister Arun Jaitley on Tuesday said there is huge curiosity and interest especially among domestic and foreign investors regarding India and the opportunity cannot be missed. He also underlined the need to resort to quick decision-making and provide stability in policy matters.

Speaking at the investiture ceremony to honour officers of the Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC), the finance minister said officials must maintain a level of civility with assesses while ensuring that those who are liable to pay tax must do so and tax evaders taken to task.

“Those who are liable to pay must pay, no evader or avoider must be allowed to go scot-free. At the same time, the levels of civility that we require in dealing with assessees will have to be very logical, very cogent,” he said.

He added there was a need to change both attitude and mindset towards investors and assesses. “We need to have a non-adversarial tax administration.”

Jaitley, who would be presenting his first full Union Budget on February 28, expressed confidence that government would manage to meet the fiscal deficit target of 4.1% of GDP for 2014-15. “Even though revenues have been challenging due to a slow manufacturing industry, it is turning around and it looks like we will be able to meet our fiscal target.”