India's Real 'Tryst With Destiny' Started With Manmohan Singh's 1991 Budget: Ramesh Damani Remembers Former PM
Dr Manmohan Singh, widely regarded as the architect of economic reforms that transformed the country, died in Delhi on Dec. 26 following age-related complications.
India may have gained Independence on August 15, 1947, but it was Dr. Manmohan Singh who actually made possible the country's "tryst with destiny", market veteran Ramesh Damani told NDTV Profit on Friday as he remembered the former Prime Minister and his contributions.
Dr Manmohan Singh, widely regarded as the architect of economic reforms that transformed the country, died in Delhi on Dec. 26 following age-related complications.
Remembering the former Prime Minister, who had previously also served as the Finance Minister in the PV Narasimha Rao-led government, Damani told NDTV Profit that India gained economic independence under Manmohan Singh.
"His (Manmohan Singh’s) contribution will be enormous and you will definitely call him the one who actually started India's 'tryst with destiny'," he said.
“We may have got independence in August 1947, but we got economic independence on July 24, 1991, when he rose in Parliament and presented his first Budget,” Damani said.
Manmohan Singh, as the then Finance Minister, is credited with steering India away from the brink of an economic catastrophe with a historic 1991 budget that opened the country’s economy to the world.
Damani said that Singh's contributions to India’s economy still resonate with us today.
“The reforms, scrapping the industrial licence raj, going against what we call the so-called industrial rule, and letting Indians dream of having a seat at the high table that we now have as a major economy (were done by him)," Damani said.
“Manmohan Singh was the first prime minister to set up the Securities Exchange Board of India, which is now a major force in the Indian capital market. He was the first to disinvest PSUs, which have been leading the global market. So other than so many things in terms of licensing and capital gains, taxation, those are some of the issues that still resonate with us today,” the market veteran added.
Under Manmohan Singh, the Indian economy grew and prospered, Damani noted.
“When he presented the first liberalisation budget of independent India, it changed the course of Indian history. The Indian economy grew, the people prospered, the middle class was born,” he said.
India owes Manmohan Singh a “huge debt of gratitude”, Damani stated.
“I think we can lay it all in the footsteps of Manmohan Singh's path-breaking budget as the finance minister in 1991. I think the nation owes him a huge debt of gratitude,” he said.
