Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Monday warned the state governments to focus on reforms to attract investment or perish.
Speaking at Happening Haryana, a global investors’ meet orgaised by Haryana government, Jaitley said, “In addition to co-operative federalism, India has also become a competitive federalism. The future would be competitive federalism because it’s not Centre-state relation, but it is states and states competing with each other in order to attract investment. Reform or perish could not be more true than it is today.”
Jaitley said that now more and more states were organising investor summits.
“Those who don’t reform, people in those states are at a disadvantageous state and those who are in a position to offer more favourable economic, business and political environment to investors certainly… are going to benefit,” Jaitley was quoted by PTI.
The finance minister, who has announced a host of steps to boost manufacturing and real estate sectors, said if there was an environment of paralysis and policies were not reforming, the investor would not feel enthused enough to invest there.
Speaking about the recent Jat reservation which led to loss of life and property, Jaitley said “dark clouds are over” and the state has a huge sense of resilience.