Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman. File
| Photo Credit: PTI
The authorities’s determination to slash company tax charges in late 2019 was a well-considered transfer to draw investments that has made a variety of distinction, and a serious transition is beneath method in the industry-labour relationship, Union Finance and Corporate Affairs Minister Nirmala Sitharaman mentioned on Friday.
She was replying to a question on the efficacy of company tax cuts and the production-linked incentive schemes, a few of which can be fuelling capital-intensive investments that create fewer jobs, throughout an interplay with college students after delivering the Pandit Hriday Nath Kunzru Memorial Lecture 2024 at her alma mater, the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU).
Also learn: The Hindu Explains | What company tax lower means for the Indian financial system
Noting that India had a really excessive stage of taxation for corporations, the Minister mentioned tax charges had been lower with a view to carry in extra investments, which in flip would create jobs and set off a “virtuous cycle” in the financial system. Many nations had been “contemplating” such tax construction adjustments to draw investments on the time, she mentioned, stressing that greenfield in addition to brownfield investments at the moment are occurring.
“Even now, I think that is the way to go forward and ensure additional capacities are coming in areas that are going to be job-creators. If there is a perception that it may not have resulted in as many jobs as was in the olden days of investments, it is also because… even as we took this decision, we were aware the industrial revolution called 4.0 was setting in, Web 3.0 was coming in, which is now talked about as AI and GPT,” she mentioned.
‘Upskilling must’
“The matter of fact is that industry, particularly in manufacturing, is going through a huge transition, a reset. And when resets happen, the labour force is also catching up with skills that are required to meet with that reset. So there will be requirement of labour… that is why the government has ramped up skilling and upskilling [for] people to get into industry,” the Minister mentioned.
The {industry}, she mentioned, needs labour to be at a unique stage now, because it has launched robotics, and digitised the operations. “So, the long and short of it, there is a transition and reset happening between industry and labour. If we are looking at only the old-fashioned [sectors] like cement and iron and steel…. no, there are newer industries coming and newer workforce is coming out, they are being trained and they are being put in,” Ms. Sitharaman mentioned.
