“Process reforms are nuts and bolts reforms, critical to economic growth” says Sanjeev Sanyal

Goa Khabar: Sanjeev Sanyal, member of the prime minister’s economic advisory council said that process reforms (PR) were nuts and bolts reforms that were critical for rapid economic growth of our country.

Sanyal was speaking on the topic: “Process reforms as public policy: how to deliver change within government” at the International Centre Goa (ICG) on Wednesday evening as a part of ICG’s public lecture series.

“If the Indian economy is growing at an annual rate of 8 per cent consistently, it is because of the series of process reforms initiated by the incumbent government,” Sanyal said.

Sanyal, who had worked as economic advisor to the Union Finance minister between 2017-22 cited a series of areas were process reforms had helped tighten up systems and created increased efficiency.

Citing a case of administrative streamlining using process reforms, Sanyal said it was now possible to shut down a company in just 90 days, where it used to take 499 days in the past. Similarly, the shutting down of old laws in the regulation sector had helped people “work from home” without any legal pressures since 2021.

According to Sanyal, changes in the Metrology Act of 2009 had helped shut out the excessive criminal implications in the field of weights and measures.

He also cited how increased staffing in the Intellectual property rights ( IPR) department had resulted in a record 100,000 patents being issued in the year 2023-24.

Sanyal also stated that several redundant or non-working government departments had been shut down leading to increased efficiency. To drive home this point he cited the example of how multiple departments related to film making like the Films division of India, directorate of film festivals, National Film archive of India etc had now been merged into one single entity, the National Film Development Corporation (NFDC).