NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant expressed his views on the need for states to take lead on next wave of reforms for India to grow as a whole. Kant was addressing a virtual event by Swarajya magazine on Tuesday, where he discussed various topics on the Road to Atmanirbhar Bharat, from making India a manufacturing hub, government's role in it and states proactive participation.
But Kant's one particular statement that made the headlines of a national digital news agency was that too much democracy was hampering reforms in India" This statement clearly raised many eyebrows.
The claim
A leading digital news publication put out a headline that read: 'Too much of democracy' hampering reforms in India. The headline was further shared on Twitter, tagging the NITI Aayog CEO, who was quick to react.
"Tough reforms are very difficult in the Indian context, we have too much of democracy...You needed political will to carry out these reforms (mining, coal, labour, agriculture) and many more reforms still need to be done," Kant was quoted as saying by PTI.
The news publication carried the same copy with an altered headline as mentioned above, to which Kant issued a clarification.
Fact-check
The first response to the out-of-context headline came from Kant himself. He quoted the original tweet, clarifying his stance on the matter.
"This is definitely not what I said. I was speaking about MEIS scheme & resources being spread thin & need for creating global champions in manufacturing sector," Kant said.
The tweet has since been deleted and the story has also been removed from the site.
Going through the statements Kant made during the webinar series about the big-ticket reforms by the Centre, he had actually said that it is not easy to do reforms in India as we are a big democracy. On those lines, he said the Centre has done a lot of reforms and it is now the states turn to push.
"States need to push the next wave of reforms with five-six champion states taking the lead," Kant had said for India to grow at higher rates.
