CEA to hold 'North Block Policy Charcha'

The first session, on Dec 9, will be on issues related to land and land reforms, followed by another one on GST by the middle of this month

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s public connect programme Chai pe charcha (Discussion over tea) has been extended to the finance ministry, albeit in a different way. Chief Economic Adviser (CEA) Arvind Subramanian has initiated ‘North Block Policy Charcha’ to get economists, policymakers and academicians at one place to discuss key policy issues.

The first session, on December 9, will be on issues related to land and land reforms, followed by another one on the Goods & Services Tax (GST) by the middle of this month. Introduction of GST and changes to the land legislation are two major reforms the industry has been pushing for long.

“It is my pleasure to inform you that we are initiating the ‘North Block Policy Charcha’ — a series of presentations, interactive sessions on the key policy issues of the day,” Subramanian said in his invitation sent out to department officials and several non-government organisations on Monday.  

India’s director at World Bank T V Somanathan will be the inaugural speaker at the first session to be held at the finance ministry headquarters. Somanathan, a 1987-batch IAS officer from Tamil Nadu, has earlier served as managing director of Chennai Metro Rail Corporation Limited.       

For the second session on GST, Arbind Modi, an officer from Indian Revenue Service, who had headed the Thirteenth Finance Commission task force on GST, is likely to be the speaker.

“Such discussions will be held regularly depending on boiling issues. We will invite bureaucrats, academicians, think tanks and various other segments,” said  a finance ministry official.

This is not the first time that such interactive sessions are being organised by the economic division of the finance ministry. Then CEA Kaushik Basu had started such discussions about three years ago. The enthusiasm fizzled out gradually and now Subramanian is starting it in a new avatar. Officials said the new chief economic adviser wanted to have a platform, where people from the government as well as outside could come and share their views on crucial policy matters. It is learnt that the name North Block Policy Charcha was suggested by Subramanian himself.

As of now, no fixed periodicity has been fixed for these interactions. These will depend on availability of the speakers and significance of issues. It has also not been decided yet how the ministry would take forward the suggestions given by the participants.