FINANCE BILL 2017: Asserting the Boundaries of Lawmaking?

Although Parliament has passed the Bill in its original form, a debate before the judiciary on certain provisions cannot be ruled out. Here is why

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The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government has entered the latter half of its tenure, arguably the most critical phase in a government’s lifecycle. This phase assumes importance on two counts. First, the ruling party needs to huddle again to identify the key objectives of its election manifesto for the next round of the public ballot. Second, the voters, by now, tend to gather sufficient quantitative and qualitative data points to evaluate the ruling party’s implementation of the promises held out.

One of the key stated intents of the ruling party, before assuming power, was to pedal up India on the ‘Ease of doing business’ index. Without doubt, the government has put unprecedented focus on this critical economic attribute, with the majority of the economic policies/reforms echoing the motive. Liberalisation of FDI policy, creation of a nurturing ecosystem for manufacturing, and a deep dive into start-up and services sector clearly speak of the government's focus in this respect.

At the Vibrant Gujarat Summit held earlier this year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi stated that "soon, India will become the easiest and one of the best places to do business". While the PM's vision and the government’s unstinted focus are definitely laudable, a long journey lies ahead. As per the World Bank’s ‘Doing Business’ report of 2017, India has managed to crawl one rank above, and is currently at 130 out of the 190 countries ranked by the World Bank. This is a strong indication that the government needs to relook at its approach and identify the aspects, which are restricting India’s improvement on the ‘Ease of doing business’ index.