India should use this economic crisis to implement Reforms 3.0

Context: We must be bold about our aspirations and use this chance to push ahead with tough reforms that could revive our economy.

Backdrop of Current Crisis: India has been challenged by following recently.

• Policy failures: Demonetisation and shoddy Goods and Services Tax (GST) implementation.
• Financial Breakdown: Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services (IL&FS crisis), and a dysfunctional banking system leading to anaemic investment 
• Impact of lockdown: had a negative impact on the economic indicators.

Way forward for the Government

• Monitoring the economy: 

• An independent fiscal council: to be tasked with publishing objective data on budget revenue, expenditure and taxes and improving the quality and type of data gathered.
• Gather high-frequency indicators: used for economic activity and labour markets, whose absence caused reverse migration of labour during the lockdown.
• Depoliticize The National Statistical Office (NSO): which should be empowered to become an independent authority, reporting to Parliament.

• Reform Labour and Education: 

• Ease of compliance for all labour codes, rationalize penalties to make them more effective and fully decentralize minimum wage setting to states. 
• Develop the New Education Policy (NEP): Since it is not binding on the states, fit can be developed along following objectives: 

• Foundational learning and regional language education.
• Modular building of college credits, and multidisciplinary emphasis in higher education, along with its vocational streaming from high-school 

• Turnover of agricultural practices: 
• A new green revolution: emphasizing on 
• Appropriate water-use based rotational cropping, 
• Higher quality seeds, sustainable and frugal use of fertilizers.
• Deployment of farm technology to improve yields and efficiency.

• Greater focus on production: and indirect implications of rural labour displacement.

• Fixing the Public Banking System: Equitize and change governance and place bad assets in a "bad bank".

• Multiply Infrastructure: Fiscal spending for capital infrastructure has knock-on multiplier effects on an entire supply chain in the long-term due to stable employment generation and output.

Conclusion: India must be bold about its aspirations and use this 'good crisis' to push ahead with tough reforms that could revive the economy.

Quote: We cannot solve problems with the same kind of thinking we used when we created them. ~Albert Einstein