Finance minister Arun Jaitley on Tuesday made out a case for a strong government at the Centre to take swift decisions at moments of crisis such as the default by IL&FS that roiled financial markets for weeks.
“A weak leadership could not have handled IL&FS the way the present government did,' Jaitley said while addressing industry captains at the annual gathering of members of industry chamber Assocham.
A series of defaults by IL&FS — the mega non banking financial institution, which was described by many as India’s Lehman Brothers moment, saw the Sensex crashing from its lifetime high of over 38000 in end-August to 34000 by October beginning.
The government had stepped in and sacked the IL&FS board and started a probe into the mess created in the financial markets.
“If this path of high growth is to continue...if higher revenues and higher resources have to continue, better infrastructure objective has to be achieved, India needs a strong and decisive leadership at the Centre,” the finance minister said.
On the recent spike in crude prices, Jaitley said since India is a net buyer, a rise in global rates adversely impacts the country and hence the economy has to be resilient to deal with it.
Jaitley said global oil prices have risen on account of “artificial shortages” and it has adversely impacted India. India imports 83 per cent of its oil needs.
“Therefore we have to face that challenge by making our economy so resilient that we have the capacity to bear that challenge,” he added.