Indian government comes under IMF's fire for fiscal lack of transparency

• Financial

International Monetary Fund (IMF) criticised the Indian government for lack of transparency in sharing details about its fiscal state. The IMF also termed India a “laggard” among the G20 nations’ hub. These pointers come at a time when the Indian government is drawing more and more scrutiny about its haphazard functioning with scarce or no forethought regarding the country’s long-term economic prospects.

Anne-Mary Gulde, IMF’s deputy director spoke out about the Indian government’s seemingly shady activities at an event held at the National Stock Exchange (NSE) in New Delhi on Wednesday, 6th November. Gulde said, as quoted by Business Standard, “Fiscal transparency should be increased.

It is fairly difficult for the private sector to get the full picture on fiscal standing. India is somewhat lacking in a programme on G20 data initiative on fiscal transparency where comparative countries have all made greater progress”.

The Indian finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman recently announced a massive tax cut for corporates after receiving backlash for increasing corporate tax slabs in her annual budget. The tax cut would lead to a gap of around Rs.

1.45 trillion. Apart from this, at the time when the budget was presented in July, there was no accounting for Rs. 1.7 trillion by Sitharaman. The lack of explanation for such a huge number going missing also compounded problems of the country already reeling under the stress of Goods and Service Tax (GST) and demonetisation. The Indian economy is currently experiencing a massive slowdown with unemployment at an all-time high.