NEW DELHI — On Tuesday, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said that making the rules and regulations easier for Indian entrepreneurs is a job that needs to be done by both the central government and the states.
The Finance Minister talked about the compliance burdens that new firms face at the NDTV Profit GST Conclave. Shee answered questions from people in the industry. She stated she “accepts” that a lot of rules that make it hard for new businesses to start are state laws.
“If the compliance has to do with state law or regulation, it’s up to the states to handle it. I agree that puts the same amount of pressure on you. Sitharaman remarked, “But even states will have to deal with the thing about making it easy for startups.”
She made it clear that she wasn’t shifting blame; she was just pointing out that many compliance rules, like labor regulations and municipal permits and registrations, are the responsibility of the state. This means that even if the central government makes its own rules easier to understand, startups will still have to deal with a lot of different rules unless states also make changes to their own rules.
The Finance Minister further stressed how dedicated the central government is to this cause. She said that the Narendra Modi-led government has worked hard to get rid of old laws and make it easier to follow the rules. “Didn’t PM Modi’s last two terms see the end of so many old laws and rules that made it hard for people to follow them? “We’re always on course for it,” she remarked.
She told the business community that the central government is still “actively engaged with the stakeholders” to find and get rid of rules that are too hard to follow. She also said she will keep working on the problems that industry executives had told her about.
The central government is trying to make it easier to do business in India, and this statement is part of that effort. This endeavor includes things like the “Next-Generation GST Reforms” and a new Simplified GST Registration Scheme that lets small and low-risk firms register in three business days. Sitharaman, on the other hand, said that a truly streamlined ecosystem needs the Center and the states to work together.