With most investors saying the passage of Goods and Services Tax (GST) Bill by Parliament in the coming Budget session is crucial for MII and Start-up India’ initiatives to be successful, Ms. Sitharaman told The Hindu that the investors’ concern on the delay in implementation of the GST “must be taken to the people who do not want the GST, including the Congress party.”

Her comments come in the backdrop of Congress leaders claiming that India will not be able to attract investment through the MII initiative because of “increasing” instances of intolerance and attacks on minorities. The Congress also alleged that the BJP was unwilling to engage in discussions on the GST.

“There is no ‘hate campaign’ in this country. If they (Congress) want to artificially build up a campaign that does not exist, it is they who have to answer,” Ms. Sitharaman said.

On the problem of inverted duty structure (where the duty on inputs/raw materials/components is higher than that on the finished product) affecting local manufacturers, the minister said she was hopeful that the coming Budget would address this issue.

She said the recent government decision to do away with customs duty exemption on life-saving medicines could boost the MII programme, adding that the government would ensure that its initiatives under the MII comply with the World Trade Organisation’s norms.

Rejecting reports that the government could allow 100 per cent FDI in the ‘market-place model’ of e-commerce, Ms. Sitharaman said these were “mere speculations.”

The Minister also said the MII initiative was not a branding or an image-building exercise but was to ensure the excess labour in the farm sector goes into manufacturing.

She said the BJP-led government is trying to change the Socialist mindset existing in the country for the past six decades where it was left to the government to create jobs or undertake manufacturing through state-owned enterprises. Now entrepreneurship is being encouraged even in government-heavy sectors such as defence and railways by opening them up and easing norms to do business, she said.

The Minister said the Modi government was “giving life” to the National Manufacturing Policy (NMP) through the MII initiative. Though the NMP was brought out by the previous UPA government in November 2011, Sitharaman said “nothing was done” under it till the BJP-led government started the MII programme. The Congress had alleged that the NMP was just a rehash or recycling of the NMP. The NMP had targeted increasing the share of manufacturing in India’s GDP from a stagnant 15-16 per cent since 1980 to 25 per cent in a decade (by 2022) and creating an additional 100 million jobs in the sector.

Tax simplification

On the problem of inverted duty structure (where the duty on inputs / raw materials / components is higher than that on the finished product) affecting local manufacturers, Sitharaman said she was hopeful that the coming Union Budget would address this. The inverted duty structure leads to higher imports of finished products. Lowering of duties on inputs will rectify this scenario in turn benefiting local manufacturers. The Budget may also further simplify the tax framework and bring out measures to help the MII initiative, she said.

The minister said the recent government decision to do away with customs duty exemption on around 74 drugs, including life-saving medicines for cancer and AIDS/HIV treatment, could boost in the MII initiative and Indian manufacturers to produce those medicines.