finance secretary t v somanathan has been on the hot seat working on the governments reforms road map during the covid19 pandemic in an interview he tells toi that the focus now needs to be on improving the quality of spending particularly on health and education excerptsthere is criticism that some of the reforms initiated in recent years have been pushed through without consensus and are not inclusive is that a fair assessmentsometimes reforms have to be done quickly it is not to say consultations should not be done but it may not always be practically feasible to evolve a consensus while you are trying to do it quickly so 1991 is a classic case where the government needed to do certain things and they proved to be beneficialif you look at many of the reforms that have been announced recently they have been preceded by extensive consultations in some cases consultations went on for well over a decade its a question of consensus versus consultations it is not possible that there will be complete consensus for all reforms ultimately governments have to decide based on their assessment of the overall welfare of the country the government has been following the path of consultationsis it more difficult to undertake reforms now given that some of the earlier ones may have been low hanging fruitsmany of the reforms of 1991 were difficult and they were brave the nature of reforms has changed as many of the reforms today are not strokeofthepen reforms they cant be done by passing an order for instance to improve the quality of public healthcare or education in schools or sanitation involves a process and it cant be instantaneous most of the reforms now require execution over time with numerous actors spread around the country from local government to the states and the centre that makes it more difficult one of the challenges is to get states on board and then carry out reforms for which various instruments are being triedwhy is it that only a crisis triggers major change be it in 1991 or the recent ibcthere are certain things that are important to respond to a crisis such as 1991 reforms which were in response to an acute shortage of foreign exchange what was done last year in the aatmanirbhar package there was no corelation of farm or labour reforms and the crisis of the day the crisis was an opportunity and the government looked at all the things that could be done to restore growth but growth had not been stopped by those things but by pandemic the government has been trying to push reforms consciously and not as a kneejerk reaction to a particular eventwhat will be the key thrust areas over the next five years or soindia is not a country that can make a big fiscal push for growth the biggest challenge will be to improve the outcome of the expenditure we incur at the centre and state level our