Full transcript: Finance Secretary Tuhin Kanta Pandey's exclusive interview with Moneycontrol

Tuhin Kanta Pandey, Finance and Revenue Secretary

“ We feel that the monetary and fiscal policy should move in tandem and not at cross purposes”: Tuhin Kanta Pandey, Finance Secretary

The vision for the budget came from the Prime Minister. “ Make it a pro-growth, pro-people and pro-taxpayer budget. These were the overall guidance,” Tuhin Kanta Pandey, Finance and Revenue Secretary told Moneycontrol’s Bodhisatva Ganguli, Shweta Punj, and Meghna Mittal in a post-budget interview.

He spoke about de-regulation and why policymaking is a collaborative process and not managed by a “deep state”, he also iterated that protectionism doesn’t help any economy and that the new Direct Tax Code will not carry any new taxes.

Edited excerpts:

Interviewer Shweta Punj: The key headline from this budget is the tax rate cut, which is being perceived as something that will really boost consumption and so on. We wanted to get your thoughts on this. What was the idea behind it? Why did you feel the need to do this in this budget?

Tuhin Kanta Pandey: I think the Honorable Prime Minister gave the overall guidance: make it a pro-growth, pro-people, pro-taxpayer budget. These were the overall guidance. The Finance Minister spent hours and hours with the team, considering different options and looking at various imperatives. We have a certain geopolitical situation. We have a global environment that is not so favorable for anyone—it is unpredictable, there are headwinds, and there is geo-economic fragmentation. And we have our own internal aspirations and we have also aspirations to grow, grow faster towards Viksit Bharat. So, we have to really balance various imperatives. But within the overall, the guidance set by the Prime Minister. So, that is how our team went about searching options, working options, and doing that. And I think the Prime Minister was very clear that it has to be a taxpayer-friendly budget.

Interviewer Shweta Punj: But the counter-argument to that would be that the taxpayers still constitute a very small percentage

And the whole idea is also to boost consumption and bring back demand in the economy. So, has there been an assessment that you have carried out to understand the kind of consumption boost that this budget could bring? And is there an assessment that has been done to understand the spillover effect in consumption via capex expenditure as compared to say tax cuts?

Tuhin Kanta Pandey: First of all, actually this is a very balanced budget. Because it does not really say that this is, rather than putting it in a binary, this is a consumption budget or this is a capital budget. I think it takes care of everything. Now, you know, consumption, investment, and savings are very interlinked. You can't really in a purely segmented way. A lot of consumption leads to investment. A lot of investment creates jobs and also promotes consumption. It's a cyclical. So, we have to really see how the cycle is actually favorably pushed up. Now, you know, so far as capex is concerned, we have, if you really look at it, from the government resources, we are spending close to 15.48 lakh crore in the capital. 11.29 lakh crore in the direct capex being proposed. And then more than 4 lakh crore. The money which we give as a grant to the states in order to do the capex. This is necessary. This is necessary because we can't do that.

The assets belong to them, like rural drinking water streams. And we have a very big Jal Jeevan Mission there. So, all of the pipeline supply, the pumps, and other projects that are done, necessarily have to be in the books of the states, not in our books. In accounting terms, it will be a grant from us and capex from them. And these are very transparently available in the very statement, the very first statement that you can refer to in budget documents. What is called capital, you know, grant for the creation of capital assets. So, this is at 15.68 lakh crore. If you really look at our borrowings, it's almost like 15.68. So, almost all the borrowings are actually being spent on capex.

And this is actually a most solitary situation. That means you are not borrowing to finance any of your revenue expenditure. Technically, it's a capex, the grant in the creation of capital assets. So, therefore, this is something which is non-inflationary. And that is a second imperative. First, I said about capex, 15.48 lakh crore. I am not counting another 4.5 lakh crore which comes from the public sector. Enterprises from their own resources. If you put it together, it becomes 19 lakh crores, 19.8 lakh crores. In no terms, we will say that the capex is ignored or capex is there. Nearly, if you are saying direct capex, what is an incremental on the BE, that's not the way to look at it. You have to look at the overall picture.

The second point is on macros and fiscal consolidation. We have retained our fiscal consolidation as a goal. Whatever the finance minister had announced as a path, we have stuck to it. We had announced that we would be 4.9% of GDP. We were there in 4.8%. Next year, we said that we will reach 4.5%. We are proposing to go at 4.4%. Thereafter, we said we would announce a path in terms of debt-to-GDP ratio. We have given that in the FRBM statement. By 2031, it will be 50 plus minus 1%. We have given different scenarios on how that will be achieved.

On the fiscal consolidation path, we have stuck to what we said. I would say it is a non-inflationary. If we were to just stimulate through increasing fiscal deficit, it would have implications for inflation control which we think that the RBI and the government must act in tandem in order to see whether inflation remains under control, if inflation is coming down, we want it to go down further because that will also give another kind of a cycle for boost, which means bringing down the rate. As and when the interest rates come down, that will give another boost to investments as well as consumption.

Third, we said, look at the taxpayer. Are we really trying to put it in the name of these days? Will we just keep on doing it? Do we not take care of some of the inflation that has set in, in terms of this? I think, as I said, the overall message of the Prime Minister was that the angst which was there, particularly on the middle class, we have to relieve their burden too. We looked at that and then we said that the context is more medium-term, long term as well. We are on the verge of bringing out a new bill, an income tax bill. How does our structure look like? Is our present structure of tax rate good enough? We thought it was not. We should look at a more forward-looking structure, which means that we may have to give away certain things. But yes, we changed the structure. It is very neat now. 0 to 4, 4 to 8, 8 to this. It is not really somewhere it is 3, the difference of 2, somewhere it is. And then gradualism, 5, 10, 15, 20. It was jumping to 30. We said we would bring another 25.  Gradualism relates to as people grow up in the income ladder, there is a gradual increase in rates. There are no jerks. So, a difference of 4 here in the rates and a difference of 5 here in the rates.

Interviewer Shweta Punj: Why wasn't it included in the budget, the new tax code? The details of it.

Tuhin Kanta Pandey: No, that is an entirely new bill. That is entirely a new bill. And the new bill has to be passed. It is an entirely new bill. It is rewritten.

Bodhisatva Ganguli: But will this change in the tax slab?

Tuhin Kanta Pandey: It will not change in that because that will be the prerogative of the tax policy. But structurally, it undergoes a massive change. The way it reads, the way it connects, the way it is understood. And the way the redundancy is removed. So, rationalisation and simplification exercises will follow in that. But some of the key things, reforms have also been brought in here. Right in this bill because they will be applicable from 1st of April. You don't have to wait till the next year after the passing of the budget. So, then the taxpayers say that we have this relief. And with the belief that with this money the government is basically transferring the decision-making from the government to the people. And there is absolutely no problem with that. As people, as taxpayers, they will do either of the three things. They will either consume or they will save or they will directly invest. In either of the three situations, given our current state of the economy, it suits us.  So, therefore, if they invest, instead of reinvesting, they invest.

Interviewer Shweta Punj: FM also made a very important statement in her speech. And after that, I am going to hand it over to Bodhi about trusting the taxpayer and assuming innocence before they are proven guilty. In the run-up to the budget, there was a lot of discontent about this. You know, about the tax notices that have gone out.

So the finance minister spoke very emphatically while presenting the budget about trusting the taxpayer, about the fact that you know, to work with the principle of innocent until proven guilty. I want to get your thoughts on that because in the last few months, in fact, all of last year, there was a lot of anxiety and angst against a slew of tax notices. There was a lot of criticism around, you know, rising tax levels and so on. So in this budget, you've tried to dispel some of that, but how easy will it be to really implement that spirit, you know, that is articulated in the budget practically on the ground?

Tuhin Kanta Pandey: Well, I think to some extent this, you know, this issue is in hyperventilation. Because if you say that out of so many taxpayers, 99.7%, of the returns are self-assessed. You and me have been filing returns, you don’t need notices. So 99.7% is only 0.3%, less than 0.3% are actually scrutinized.

Interviewer - Shweta Punj: I'm not talking about companies here.

Tuhin Kanta Pandey: No, I'm talking of individuals and put together. So, therefore, in any case, it is a trust-first approach that FM announced, and that trust-first approach will continue. It was important to reaffirm it because it is time to time you have to reaffirm that there is a trust first principle that will follow. And with that approach also, we did several of the rationalisation. We didn't wait for those rationalisations for the next new bill. Because we could have said that, okay, let us try and bring it there because something which we see is already very urgent. Why wait for another year to make it happen? Why not make it happen straight away? Now in TDS and TCS that has been approached, our rationalization for example. A lot of people are impacted by it. You and I are also impacted. It's not really the institutions and big companies that are really looking at TDS and TCS. In many cases, TDS and TCS is required for tracking. And that is a very important part of the tax administration. When you do the tracking, that enables a lot of information. That information in fact comes in handy even to the taxpayer.

See, it is very difficult for you to keep your calculation of what you are doing, how much information is there, then you have to collect it from different banks, how much of interest I have collected. So all that is now pretty thing of the past. Because when you open an AIS, your annual income statement, and if you look at 26 AIS statements from your own traces, the tax site, you are able to see who is deducting how much, who is there, who is depositing, who is not depositing, suppose your employer has deducted, whether or not he has deposited, you are able to see it there.

You don't have to really phone up and ask those people, have you deposited my tax which you collected? So there is an automated process that has been put into place. And TTS, and TDS processes are also there. Most of the time, TTS, TDS is very small, 0.1%, 1%, and all that. But sometimes they are larger because when the tax is in any case going to be collected, it has to be collected as pay-as-you-go. Like when you are earning income, you must also pay income tax, it is fairly certain this is the amount you got to be paying. Then the TTS will be a higher amount, you know, from your salary. When it comes to some transactions, it may be 1% or 0.1%, or 2%. So we have rationalized it. We have said, okay, let's not have too many thresholds, too many rates. You should understand, what is this. Should I take 5,000, or should I deduct 15,000 at another limit? So we have said, okay, broadly for 10, 20, 50, like this.

And then we said rates also, threshold and rate, standardization. So that we did in this. Then we had several things for ease of doing business, the compliance burden on business, on individuals. For example, small things like self-occupied property.

Interviewer - Shweta Punj: But in terms of sensitization of the officers, Mr. Pandey, people who are dealing with those officers on the run.

Tuhin Kanta Pandey: I think the law itself has to change. One of the points we must say is that officers will actually be ordained by law to do a certain thing. Suppose now today, we have a faceless regime. We have a self-assessment regime. So practically, the tax administration is done by the taxpayer itself, himself or herself. When you file your taxes, who is doing the thing? You yourself calculate your taxes. And there are certain calculation sheets are also available. You can take the help of any tax advisors and do that. And then you deposit. And that is accepted by the machines. And then even an assessment, a very small 0.3% of whatever has come as scrutiny, which will again scrutinize not based on whims and fancies of anybody. It is a system-based picking based on the risk-weighted system.

Suppose you have lots of mismatches between what is being intended in your AIS and the one you are filing. In that case, the system might discover a mismatch and then put it as a thing to be scrutinised. Or it could be a random. You will pick up 0.1% of this category as a thing and random selections are made. Again, there is no selection by any level. It is a system-based selection. Then assessment. Assessment goes on faceless. Nobody knows where it is going, who is assessing. Officers do not know as well.

Interviewer - Shweta Punj: So the new tax rate, what can we expect in that? If you could share some specifics with us.

Tuhin Kanta Pandey: In the new tax bill also, these kind of reforms which we have brought in will obviously continue. Obviously continue. The reform will continue. The new tax bill, I think the purpose is to rewrite something which has been amended end number of times. That Act of 1961 has been amended so many times. Now things have changed. Some provisions have been edited. Some things have been repeated. Something has been brought in. Connections are there across chapters. So you have a reading of a bill. It is also drafted in a different era. Even now, the way we write laws also have substantially undergone a change. The newer things are more direct.

Interviewer Shweta Punj: Are we looking at doing away with some punitive clauses? Doing away with imprisonment for certain?

Tuhin Kanta Pandey: Some of those decriminalisations we have already done. So the point is, whatever reforms have been done, will be seamlessly carried forward.

Interviewer - Shweta Punj: But no new taxes in the new direct tax bill?

Tuhin Kanta Pandey: No, nothing of that sort.

Interviewer -Shweta Punj: No Securities Transaction Tax, no increase in capital gains?

Tuhin Kanta Pandey: No, nothing. Tax rates etc. is an annual exercise which is undertaken by the Finance Minister and it is not there. We are talking of a tax law which enables the structure. It says what is to be done, done what. And this one, as FM also said in her speech, will be close to half of the pages. The chapters will be close to half. There will be a lot of consolidation. When you are reading, if you have cross-referencing all the time, you would have a problem. If it is at one place, the flow comes in. Imagine reading a book.

Interviewer - Shweta Punj:  Got it. So it is easier to understand, simpler. But no new taxes, no additions?

Tuhin Kanta Pandey: No. Nothing that the taxpayer should be worried about.

Interviewer - Shweta Punj: Okay, that is heartening to hear.

Bodhisatva Ganguli: Thank you, Shweta. In fact, I hope the new tax bill will remove the apprehension that there is a deep state. The existence of a deep state which is coming to the public today.

Tuhin Kanta Pandey: I think there are many deeps going on. Last week, we had DeepSeek. It was like something which you know, AI, there is nothing called deep state. I think the point is, everything that we are doing is becoming a collaborative exercise. The earlier era of lawmaking is not there. Where is that era now? For this particular book, for this particular piece that we are writing, we have received 20,000 suggestions.

Bodhisatva Ganguli: Right. From members of the public in India.

Tuhin Kanta Pandey: It was put it out, suggestions were invited, so many committees have fallen to it. In my opinion, in today's complex world, it is not possible for just a few of us to just write it down and do something significant. Each element of today's policy is draft policy, share, exchange, comments given upon, deliberated, rationale given. It is always now, you know, the present era is the drafting etc., and this has happened in earlier cases also, in case of BNS, which was done. consultations were done. So therefore, to say that, you know, there is something deep state which is there, this is also, you know, like we are saying, Cold War, I mean, by deep state you can also enact a Cold War proposal, there is something, Cold War, we can invite all those things, but the fact is that the bureaucracy or administration implements the policy of the government. And those laws are passed by the parliament. And those laws, such laws like this are scrutinized by the parliament standing committees. And those parliament standing committees invite the suggestions of the people. And standing committee invites the experts to look at it.

So, all your tax advisors, all your others, all your people will be again after this, will again will get an opportunity to really go and do that. And today also in one of the interactions with the industry, I said, you will get one more time. Whatever suggestions we received and all that, but whether or not we incorporated them well, whether we drafted it well, whether something is still amiss, we will still have an opportunity to do that. This collaborative lawmaking, this collaborative lawmaking is what will take India, propel India forward. If we want to be a Viksat Bharat, we cannot really be talking in terms of isolation. And talking of we and they, it is we and we. And mind you, tax is one which impacts everyone including us. If I write a bad law, I will also be suffering because of that.

Bodhisatva Ganguli: So, I just wanted to, we may not be in a cold war, but we certainly have a tariff war, which seems to have started. So, two questions. One is that it is very clear that Indian markets fell today, so did Asian markets. The US markets are likely to fall today and they will be turbulent. And is there any analysis which the, a preliminary analysis which the Indian government has carried out of the second order impacts, in fact they are not so second order, they are very much first order, impact of these tariffs in terms of markets, you know, because if markets fall, there will be a wealth effect that can also hit consumption. So, is there some kind of analysis which the government has carried out on the likely impact of these Trump tariffs?

Tuhin Kanta Pandey: One point which we have to keep in mind and always, you know, we remember 1939, the Great Depression. History tells us that protectionism doesn't help. It will lower trade, global trade, it will lower the growth, trade growth, it will lower the overall growth. So, that's what economic theory tells us, that is also what has been there. Because an opportunistic behaviour by one will invite another opportunistic behaviour. It is then, you know, in game theory, it is like we popularise ourselves together. Rather than together we prosper, together we popularise ourselves. So, that's the general thing.

Now, the geopolitical context is what it is and geoeconomic fragmentation is a thing which is happening for a lot of time. And I am not commenting on what are the rationale for this because there are processes, social processes which are beyond us to fathom. Sometimes they are as a result of long-time angst that has been brewing. And because, you know, something has not been fair to a large section of people. And that brewing has led to a situation where the people said, okay, let us get apart. Let's not integrate. So, we have, you know, this de-globalisation from a person then, you know, you remember Thomas Friedman wrote, you know, the world is flat exactly about 20 years ago.

Bodhisatva Ganguli: It's now going in the opposite direction.

Tuhin Kanta Pandey: And you know, the world is different now. So, I think these are the processes which we unravel over a period of time. These are societal processes. Now, given that as what we are, where we are, we have to make the best of our situation. We have to look at our own national interest and public interest. We have a large economy. Today it is recognised as the fastest growing large economy. But given our own per capita income and our own aspirations, we want to climb higher. We have a vision of Viksit Bharat. And the path to Viksit Bharat has to be paved with a lot of hard work, a lot of concrete action, a lot of policies, a lot of things that we have to do it autonomously. Not that because others tell us. Because we tell ourselves.

When we do rationalisation, we don't need any World Bank or IMF to tell us how deregulation will help. We know that it will help. Because if we have to increase productivity, we have to make the total factor productivity more. We have to remove friction. We have to reduce transaction cost. And wherever the transaction cost is high, it will have an impact on growth. Whatever little delta, it will have a negative impact on growth. Can we remove that delta? If everyone tries to remove that delta in its own sphere, put together it will become a big sum. So that is where the vision of deregulation also is there. There has to be appropriate regulation. Regulation is needed because without a red light, nothing can work. It will be chaos. But you need appropriate regulation. If you have a red light, where the timing is set in a manner. Where you make 2 minutes or 5 minutes for a particular side to wait. And other side is also waiting 5 minutes. It is a very suboptimal way of managing a red light change. Red light has to be set in a manner where it is more efficient. So this example will tell you how we can actually try and achieve appropriate regulation.

Interviewer - Shweta Punj: So we have spoken about deregulation. It was flagged in the eco survey as well. We wanted to get your thoughts in on interest rates. Considering we have the RBI policy also coming up. Now that fiscal policy has done its job. Are you hoping that we could see something happening on the monetary policy front as well?

Tuhin Kanta Pandey: We hope so. Because the reason is that we feel that the monetary policy and fiscal policy should move in tandem and not at cross purposes. Like if we were to really try and stimulate beyond a level. Not caring about our fiscal deficit, it will add another inflation spiral. Which then will get a reaction from the regulator in a different way. And then we will not get the outcome that we are wanting. We need non-inflationary growth. Inflation doesn't help in making a sustained growth. You will try and do it for a while. But then it claws back your growth very quickly. So our fiscal deficit, fiscal consolidation is in place. That's one imperative that I told you right at the beginning that we have kept in mind. We are on a gliding path of control of our fiscal deficit which gives, if inflation is waning, if the regulator feels there is a right time to do it. But there are always risks. There will always be risks.

So one has to weigh what is the risk of inflation coming back. Because to some extent there could be an imported inflation. So what is going to be happening on the exchange rate. What is going to be happening on oil. So we know that generally we don't anticipate an oil spike. Because more energy will be pumped in on the petroleum side. We know that. So therefore I think supplies will be good. But we also have this risk of exchange rate. Because if there is so much of uncertainty. Some of the capital flows get reversed from the emerging markets, which has an impact on exchange rates. So therefore we do have these conflicting things.

As I said, balancing of competing paradigms. Balancing of competing thing. Is the one which is an exercise which we have to do in the budget. And so is in every economic decision making, there will be this counter thing. So it is a balancing act.

Bodhisatva Ganguli: But on balance you think that RBI should start an interest rate cutting cycle as soon as possible.

Tuhin Kanta Pandey: Well it is for the RBI to see. I think they are competent. They have a monetary policy committee. And they have a certain mandate to do so. Within that I think they will do the best what they can. It is not for us to suggest. An independent regulator looks at it. But the conditions have to be created. So on the budget side what we have done, we have looked at demand side. We have looked at supply side. In supply side we have taken several measures, which in the short, medium and long term, would actually help us have some handle on our core worry. And our core worry more than core inflation is the food inflation. So food inflation always keeps us back in some respects. Because of the particular nature, particularly of climate issues. And also some of the structural issues in agriculture.

For example, one of the structural issues is the pulses and oil seeds. A big segment. So as the incomes grow there is a greater protein consumption needed. And protein largely comes from vegetarians. It will come from pulses and milk and other things. And these are the kind of products where if your supplies do not increase, we will have spikes. And then we will have imports. So apart from the import bill, our farmers will also not be benefiting. So that is why we are talking about Atmanirbharta in pulses. A program where we say, that if you have a certain contract with agencies, we will be positioned to take up whatever they want to bring in. And we will be prepared to take it. No matter what. How much they bring in.

Bodhisatva Ganguli: So another way to boost consumption, one of the income tax cuts. Obviously will be to cut GST rates. That is not in the purview of the budget. The GST council will take the decision. But could we expect a rationalisation of top GST rates in the coming months or in the next few months.

Tuhin Kanta Pandey: GST rate rationalization is also an important imperative itself. And of course, the GST council is seized of the matter. They have created a group of ministers. Everything has to be worked with states in the centre together. There has to be a large consensus around it. And the work is already on. And it is the details that need to be thrust upon. How would the rationalization be carried out If you want to settle something, you cut down on certain rates. You want to gravitate towards a rate. There will be some rates which may have to increase perhaps. So will it be acceptable. There will be some rates which have to decline. So decline will generally be acceptable.

If the sacrifice of the revenue is too much, then the people will try to save. Because there is also a fiscal management imperative, both for the centre and the states. Like we will be looking at debt to GDP ratio to be brought to a certain level over a period of time. As a fiscal consolidation part, the finance commission itself will propose. Even for states, a certain fiscal consolidation part in respect of states own debts in relation to the percentage of their GSTP.

Interviewer - Shweta Punj: So any levers that you have that you are hoping to pull out around that time? Because the RBI dividend will be missing. Pay commission payout will come --

Tuhin Kanta Pandey: Why are you presuming it?

Interviewer - Shweta Punj:  Well RBI dividend probably won't be as--

Bodhisatva Ganguli: 2.46 lakh crore.

Tuhin Kanta Pandey: Yeah, but how are you presuming it?

Interviewer - Shweta Punj: It seems like that.

Tuhin Kanta Pandey: I don't think that you can really say one year going forward you will not have the—

Bodhisatva Ganguli: Just a couple of questions, you assume a nominal growth of 10.1% for 2025-26. So you are assuming a real GDP growth of what? 6.1% or is it a higher number? I mean what is the GDP deflator that one is looking at here?

Tuhin Kanta Pandey: I think if you say GDP deflator is sometimes slightly less than headline inflation. But do that as it may, you know we have kept a certain range, within which you know we should work. It's quite difficult in these uncertain times to really be very estimates about growth rate. You will find that at least 4-5 times in a year minimum, you know, estimates the forecast changes. So therefore we are now when we are preparing for the budget and we are talking about 14 months away. You know, this is for next March. Now we have to keep it certain range of questions. Like many commentators are saying it should be 10.4. And the nominal term should be 10.5. And we have assumed 10.1. This assumes a certain amount of risk which might come in as well. We assume a risk more from the angle of what is going to happen in a certain part of our own GDP. As I said there is an import and export part of the GDP which is quite vulnerable to sort of what's happening around the world. And it may have some transmission impact on the other domestic sectors.  So taking into broad view, we have assumed 10.1.

Bodhisatva Ganguli: I assume you actually answered my last question. What is your biggest worry?  To ask it's very cliche. But what keeps you awake at night?

Tuhin Kanta Pandey: Well, I think again just to worry, I would say that our macroeconomic fundamentals are strong. We are not as vulnerable as we were earlier in terms of our financial institutions being strong. They are well capitalized. They are profitable. Because a lot of vulnerability comes from the financial side. Financial sectors.

Interviewer - Shweta Punj:  So you are not worried about anything?

Tuhin Kanta Pandey: So I would say that there are certain risks something which we need to address and manage. There are certain challenges which will come that we will need to address and manage. But overly sort of, I can't really put a finger on one year rather.

Interviewer- Shweta Punj: So do you think in this budget you've created you know an environment for the private sector to come forward and invest?

Tuhin Kanta Pandey: Certainly. I think what we are really saying that the private sector also step in. And today you know I had a meeting in CII. And I also had a meeting with FICCI. In CII particularly I said, I told that why did Adam Smith say animal spirits and did not say human spirits. He wanted to energize animal spirits and not the human spirit. I think perhaps because humans sometimes think so much that you know in worrying about the future they forget the present. And the animals remain in the present in a much more concrete form. And that is why you know if you keep on thinking,  you will not be able to take risks and also put your money into capex, always thinking of calculating what might happen and so on. So that's what I said. That's why he said animal spirits. So I said let's for a change become an animal and think like animals.

Interviewer - Shweta Punj: So you think the private sector is overthinking? They are overthinking right now. And that's why they are being paralysed into inaction.

Bodhisatva Ganguli: Why is the private sector not investing? I mean some of them are. But why is the private sector in general not investing?

Tuhin Kanta Pandey: I think the private sector was initially worried about their own thing. We had certain laws which were brought into motion. We have a twin balance sheet problem. And you know there was a necessity of worry. And then we have an IBC. If you take too much of a debt you might even lose your company. I think those things are now stabilized. People have brought down their leverage. They are well capitalized. They are trying to do that. They can take some debt also. Banks are in a position to give debt as well. But you should only take as much debt and you should also bring your own equity. And bring that thing. So I would say that a new kind of entrepreneurship is also needed. The new younger leadership in that. Because there is also a generational change happens. The new generation comes. Like some of the people, the startups, think sometimes quite differently. And we need to have a supporting environment for those startups. Because you know they will bring new risk-taking and new things.  So if everyone remains conservative and wait and watch approach. Then everyone will keep on waiting and watching.

Interviewer - Shweta Punj: Thank you so much for your time. And we wish you the very best. Thank you.