Black Money: Not safe in India to deal in excessive cash

The government will soon come out with a plan to address low corporate investment, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said on Thursday.

"There is a problem of private investment, and the government is seized of the issue. Soon, you will hear from us," Jaitley said at the investor summit organised by JP Morgan in the Capital.

"Corruption in the Central government has become a thing of the past. The present government has taken quick decisions whether it is implementing the GST or targeting subsidies. As far as black money and benami transactions are concerned, it is not safe in India to deal in excessive cash," Jaitley said.

He also said remonetisation has been substantially completed. "We are analysing the economic indicators, and appropriate actions will be taken at right time."

"India's confidence as a nation has increased tremendously in the last few years. So far, we have been able to contain the impact of inflation post-GST. There has been a positive move towards digitisation, and remonetisation has been substantially completed. As far as bringing more items under GST is concerned, I think real estate is the easiest to bring in," he said.

A proposal of capital adequacy of the banks is also on the table. The government is also deliberating on the issue of divestment of Air India, for which a meeting is being chaired later in the day, Jaitley said.

"As far as divestment is concerned, we never had any reservations about privatisation. In the last few years, market was quite volatile at times, so the government had to wait for the right time for the divestment. We have an ambitious target for divestment this year. Even today, we have called for an Air India divestment meeting," he said.

He also said as far as farm loan waiver by States is concerned, they have to find their own resources for this purpose.