States told to drive reform

The process of second generation reforms will have to be led by the states, said Roger Noll, professor at the Stanford Centre for International Development.

Speaking at a Confederation of Indian Industry programme on "Economic Policy Reform Issues" with SCID, Noll said, major areas of economic reforms would take place at the state level as education, electricity and health were state subjects.

N K Singh, member Planning Commission said that the country was on track to achieve a seven per cent rate of growth in GDP. However, he added that the important thing was to make it sustainable.

Singh said, at present, the commission was focusing on reforms in power and energy sector and how to improve the process to get better results.

Planning Commission's first report on power sector on creation of enabling fiscal regime for power and energy sector would be submitted to the finance ministry on December 24.

Singh pointed out that it was important to create a modern system of taxation covering all goods and services and value added tax would play a crucial role in this direction.

State finance minister, Asim Dasgupta said that land reforms was a part of economic reforms and pointed out the achievement of West Bengal in land reforms.

Later, on the sidelines of the session, Dasgupta said that the empowered committee of state finance ministers for implementation of value added tax would meet in January.

He added, 10 states including West Bengal were ready to implement VAT.