India most attractive destination for global investors: Rajnath
New Delhi, July 23 : India has become the most attractive destination for global investors and its GDP growth has moved much ahead of the inflation rate, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh said on Monday.
Speaking at a meeting of the Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) here, he admitted that there were some problems with demonetisation and the implementation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) but issues have now been sorted out and people are aware of the benefits of the two moves.
"India's GDP (Gross Domestic Product) had been half of the inflation rate four years ago. But it has gone up rapidly in the last four years. The GDP rate now has moved much ahead of the current inflation rate. There has not been a single moment in the last four years when the GDP growth was lower than the inflation rate.
"This is a big difference you can see now," he said.
Asserting that India has now become the most attractive destination for world's investors, he said: "India has received more than $150 billion FDI (Foreign Direct Investment) in last four years. There was a time four years ago when only two mobile factories were running in India. Now, the number of these factories has reached to 120."
This is an indication that the whole world has belief and confidence in India's economy, said the senior BJP leader, adding India has gained a new height in the ease of doing business and it jumped from 142 to 100th place.
Citing a survey by a reputed consultancy, the Minister said India was ranked 9th among the world's top 10 economies in 2014 and had raced ahead of France to emerge as the top six.
"I am confident, as economists predict, in the next two-three years India's economy will be among the top five. With this pace of GDP growth, by 2030 we will break into the world's top three economies."
In four years of our government, there has been drastic financial inclusion as the people living in huts have been the part of economy because of opening of their bank accounts. "Fifty-five per cent of the total bank accounts opened across the world are in India only."
Describing the benefits of government's digitisation scheme, Rajnath Singh said subsidies of 431 government-run schemes amounting to over Rs 365,000 crore have been transferred to the bank accounts of beneficiaries through Digital Payment Direct Transfer policy so that mediators could not do any wrong doings.
Stating that the GST rates have recently been slashed on several items and that many have been brought under zero and 5 per cent slabs, Rajnath Sigh said the government is open to further review of the slabs.
"Out of 6.5 crore retail traders, around 1.25 crore have registered under the GST. As per the Economic Survey, more than 1.15 crore returns have been filed during November 2016-2017. GST is a major taxation reform in the country where only 6.10 crore people are under the taxation regime out of over 130 crore population," he said.
Underlining traders as strong pillars in the country's economy, the Minister sought the cooperation of the trading community to realise the Prime Minister's dream of doubling India's economy by 2022 and urged them to unite with the farmers so that no political party could avoid them.
Taking a veiled dig at former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Rajnath Singh said economic growth was dependent on a realistic, not economist, Prime Minister.
"There is no lack of economic potential in India. This potential was observed by our former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Our incumbent Prime Minister Narendra Modi also observed it and has been trying his best to do in that direction. Neither Atalji was economist nor Modiji is. There is no need to be an economist to give country's economy a new height. It is necessary to be realistic," Rajnath Singh said.
"In my view, no matter if Prime Minister and the people sitting in the government are not economists, they should be realistic. The country can grow fast if they are realistic," he said.
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Single higher education regulator bill tabled in LS; Oppn flags ‘centralisation,' JPC likely
New Delhi: A bill to set up a 13-member body to regulate institutions of higher education was introduced in the Lok Sabha on Monday.
Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan introduced the Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan Bill, which seeks to establish an overarching higher education commission along with three councils for regulation, accreditation, and ensuring academic standards for universities and higher education institutions in India.
Meanwhile, the move drew strong opposition, with members warning that it could weaken institutional autonomy and result in excessive centralisation of higher education in India.
The Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan Bill, 2025, earlier known as the Higher Education Council of India (HECI) Bill, has been introduced in line with the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020.
The proposed legislation seeks to merge three existing regulatory bodies, the University Grants Commission (UGC), the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), and the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE), into a single unified body called the Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan.
At present, the UGC regulates non-technical higher education institutions, the AICTE oversees technical education, and the NCTE governs teacher education in India.
Under the proposed framework, the new commission will function through three separate councils responsible for regulation, accreditation, and the maintenance of academic standards across universities and higher education institutions in the country.
According to the Bill, the present challenges faced by higher educational institutions due to the multiplicity of regulators having non-harmonised regulatory approval protocols will be done away with.
The higher education commission, which will be headed by a chairperson appointed by the President of India, will cover all central universities and colleges under it, institutes of national importance functioning under the administrative purview of the Ministry of Education, including IITs, NITs, IISc, IISERs, IIMs, and IIITs.
At present, IITs and IIMs are not regulated by the University Grants Commission (UGC).
Government to refer bill to JPC; Oppn slams it
The government has expressed its willingness to refer it to a joint committee after several members of the Lok Sabha expressed strong opposition to the Bill, stating that they were not given time to study its provisions.
Responding to the opposition, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju said the government intends to refer the Bill to a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) for detailed examination.
Congress Lok Sabha MP Manish Tewari warned that the Bill could result in “excessive centralisation” of higher education. He argued that the proposed law violates the constitutional division of legislative powers between the Union and the states.
According to him, the Bill goes beyond setting academic standards and intrudes into areas such as administration, affiliation, and the establishment and closure of university campuses. These matters, he said, fall under Entry 25 of the Concurrent List and Entry 32 of the State List, which cover the incorporation and regulation of state universities.
Tewari further stated that the Bill suffers from “excessive delegation of legislative power” to the proposed commission. He pointed out that crucial aspects such as accreditation frameworks, degree-granting powers, penalties, institutional autonomy, and even the supersession of institutions are left to be decided through rules, regulations, and executive directions. He argued that this amounts to a violation of established constitutional principles governing delegated legislation.
Under the Bill, the regulatory council will have the power to impose heavy penalties on higher education institutions for violating provisions of the Act or related rules. Penalties range from ₹10 lakh to ₹75 lakh for repeated violations, while establishing an institution without approval from the commission or the state government could attract a fine of up to ₹2 crore.
Concerns were also raised by members from southern states over the Hindi nomenclature of the Bill. N.K. Premachandran, an MP from the Revolutionary Socialist Party representing Kollam in Kerala, said even the name of the Bill was difficult to pronounce.
He pointed out that under Article 348 of the Constitution, the text of any Bill introduced in Parliament must be in English unless Parliament decides otherwise.
DMK MP T.M. Selvaganapathy also criticised the government for naming laws and schemes only in Hindi. He said the Constitution clearly mandates that the nomenclature of a Bill should be in English so that citizens across the country can understand its intent.
Congress MP S. Jothimani from Tamil Nadu’s Karur constituency described the Bill as another attempt to impose Hindi and termed it “an attack on federalism.”
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