NITI Aayog CEO To NDTV On Why Fuel Prices Can't Be Cut

The government has been battling criticism over rising fuel prices and runaway inflation

Investing huge sums into top quality infrastructure will lead to a high trajectory of growth, but it is a difficult choice to make if resources are scarce, the Chief Executive of the government think tank NITI Aayog, Amitabh Kant, told NDTV. The government has been battling criticism over rising fuel prices and runaway inflation. Mr Kant, on whether the tax structure on these essentials needs to be rationalised to bring relief for people, pointed out that an ideal pace of tax collection must remain to ensure there are enough resources to be pumped into reviving the economy amid the COVID-19 pandemic. "There is a dilemma before the government. One of the key challenges is that if you want to get into high trajectories of growth and if you really want to revive India's economy, how do you accelerate the pace of infrastructure, how do you spend more and more?" Mr Kant told NDTV. "And to my mind, the revival of India's economy will be through putting more and more resources into good quality infrastructure and the focus has to be on creation of really top-class infrastructure, which will lead to job creation and that will lead to construction getting revived," the NITI Aayog CEO said.