SPEECH OF Ms. ARUNDHATI BHATTACHARYA, CHAIRMAN, SBI ON EXCISE DAY FUNCTION.

SPEECH DELIVERED BY Ms. ARUNDHATI BHATTACHARYA, CHAIRMAN, SBI, AS GUEST OF HONOUR, ON THE OCCASION OF EXCISE DAY FUNCTION. 

Ms. ARUNDHATI BHATTACHARYA, IS A FAMILIAR FACE AND VOICE OF DAY-TO-DAY ECONOMIC AFFAIRS.  HER UNDERSTANDING AND VISION, POSITIVE APPROACH AND DEDICATION TO MAKE INDIA STRONG AND TO ROLL OUT THE POLICIES OF THE GOVERNMENT WITHOUT ANY FEAR AND FAVOUR IS LAUDABLE.  MUMBAI IS LUCKY ENOUGH TO HAVE SUCH A DIGNITARY AMONGST US, WHO NOT ONLY SHARES HER VIEW BUT POINTED OUT THE IMAGE OF THE DEPARTMENT AMONG THE GENERAL PUBLIC AND THE MINDSET OF THE TAX PAYERS. 

Smt Arusha Vasudev, Shri V.S. Krishnan, Shri Alok Chopra, dignitaries on the dais, Ladies and Gentlemen,

            First of all, congratulations on the Central Excise day 2015.  My heartiest congratulations also to all the winners of the certificates today.  When I first received this invitation, I was a little puzzled as to why the Central Excise department thought it fit to accord this honour to me.  But then, I realized , you know, I couldn’t possibly get such a chance of getting so many tax people to talk to and in such a situation where they couldn’t talk back to me.  So I thought you know this is definitely an occasion I should take up.  Of course, the organization that I head, it is one of the largest tax payers in the country. Whether it be Income tax, we are normally between the first two alongwith ONGC or it be Service tax where also we are among the first two alongwith LIC. So, we are very large tax payers in this country. But the sad thing is in this country is somehow or the other, a sense of pride is not attached with the paying of taxes and that is something, I think I thought I should talk to you as to how is it that we can inculcate in our people this sense of pride because without taxes, without the work that you are doing to collect revenue, we cannot definitely build this country.  You know there are certain games that doctors play in which they will give you certain words and ask you whether it is arousing in you a positive response or a negative response.  Say for instance, I use the word, say something like a butterfly.  Most of you will immediately have a happy thought.  At the same time, if I use the word tax, most of you even though, you are tax people, will have a negative thought.  Now, why should that be the case and I think we need to go to the root of this problem.  We have just heard that GST is about to come in and my sincere request as a tax payer both as a corporate and as an individual is that we must make GST something that will be easily understood and easily operationalized.  One of the main reasons why we have this negative response whenever we hear the word tax is because of the difficulty of its implementation. In India, somehow or the other, whether it is in the area of tax or whether it is in the area of any other regulation, our regulations are meant to prevent abuse and it is not meant for the ease of implementation.  The reason again is that our systems are not able to catch hold of abusers very quickly and punish them properly.  As a result, we instead, make our regulations so convoluted and so difficult because we believe this is the best way to prevent its abuse.  I think first of all we need to get some trust back within ourselves.  We must trust people today to do the right thing.  Today the Prime Minister for instance, is saying that you don’t need to get anybody to attest your papers.  You can do self attestation because we trust you.  So also I think we need to bring in more of a regimen of trust while ensuring that we make the implementation and the people who look for abuse much stronger so that the abuse can be quickly caught and can be justifiably punished.  Because unless we do that no matter how much we try to make the ease of business better, it’s not going to happen. 

            We need to get back trust in our people, trust in our country and we need to ensure that as the new regime of GST kicks in we keep this in mind, we keep in mind the fact that there are people out there who are honest , who want to comply by everything but unless you make it easy enough to comply , you will have layers and layers of people in between who will ensure that they take advantage of all the loops and loopholes that are available and they really turn the system on its head and therefore, the implementation becomes more and more difficult.  I think the other thing in respect of taxes is that we need the Government to show how these revenues are being used.  Again, why these negative thoughts?  The negative thoughts happen in the minds of the citizens because very often they are not able to realize or not able to understand what their money is being used for.We have very little accountability that we can get from the Government sources as to the actual use that the money is being put into and therefore, if there is an effort from the Government to  show where your hard earned money is going how people in the country, how you or your dependents are benefitted from it, we will find that the tax compliance will become that much better and that much more amenable to the people who actually pay the taxes.  So I think you know overall in respect of taxes this is a very important job that you all do, you all organize the revenue collection for the country without that we wouldn’t have a government, we wouldn’t have any social infrastructure, but we need to ensure that the people whom you tax or from whom you collect that they also see them as a part of the system, that they are willing and co-operative alongwith you to ensure that the system works properly and well and that together, we can take up the nation building that the Chief Minister just talked about a few minutes back.  It is indeed true today India is the flavor in all international forums.  The no. of invitations we keep getting in order to address the international investors is astounding.  A year back, nobody was interested in us.  But that is precisely the point. A year back nobody was interested in us.  It should not be that a year hence, people will again lose interest.  And therefore, because of that reason, we need to ensure that whatever keeps people interested, whatever is good for the country, whatever ensures that this country can come up to its potential, all of us together need to do it.

            Thank you again very much for inviting me and all the very best on your Central Excise day.