New Delhi, Aug 9 (KNN) The passage of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Bill augurs well for the growing political consensus for economic reforms, said Dr Raghuram Rajan, RBI Governor in his last monetary policy statement.

While timely implementation of GST will be challenging, there is no doubt that it should raise returns to investment across much of the economy, even while strengthening government finances over the medium-term.

This should boost business sentiment and eventually investment. The current accommodative stance of monetary policy and comfortable liquidity conditions should also provide a congenial environment for the reinvigoration of aggregate demand conditions, he said.

However, successive downgrades of global growth projections by multilateral agencies and the continuing sluggishness in world trade points to further slackening of external demand going forward. Accordingly, the GVA growth projection for 2016-17 is retained at 7.6 per cent, with risks facing the economy at this juncture evenly balanced around it, added the Governor.

Meanwhile, Dr Rajan, whose tenure would be ending on September 4, termed his tenure “fantastic” and said snap judgements by critics do not matter as he has made useful contributions and the results will visible in the next 5-6 years.

"Snap judgements either by critics or supporters don't really matter. What matters is how these (measures) play out in the longer run for stronger and sustainable growth for the country, for job creation, movement into middle income (country)," he said.

He further said that "People can have different judgements but we have to see...proof of the pudding is in the eating. Lets see how it plays out over 5-6 years, then we will reach a judgement whether this is good or bad."