In an interview with ET Now, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley talks about economy, people's expectations, and opposition's obstructionism. Excerpts:There is bound to be expectations and I do not regret that. In fact, I am in no mood to taper down expectations, because you had terrible governance, particularly in UPA II. You had all kinds of allegations of corruption, policy paralysis. You had the investors just moving away and when situations of this kind arise, people expect a change. Now, you have a decisive leadership, you have a government where the last word belongs to the Prime Minister and that is how it should be.You have a very large number of decisions almost week after week being taken, structural changes going on and I would say ever since 1991, when significant changes took place, this is probably one important phase of the Indian economy where the next generation of changes are being made in India. The direction is absolutely clear. We have moved up, but I believe some restlessness of the people is justified. I do believe that India’s growth potential is not 7, 7.5 or 8%. In today’s given scenario, if all these decisions are effectively taken and implemented, India has a capacity to cross 9% and move towards a 10% growth. People must be restless. They must put pressure on government, opposition and on elected representatives that this is our moment and therefore we cannot squander it away.There has to be a mature reading and an analysis of India electorate and India’s parliamentary democracy. A decisive mandate in India is not an un-incumbent mandate because there is a very significant section in Indian politics which actually does not believe in reforms.No, it is not only obstructionist, they do not realise the significance. Now I visited Dr. Manmohan Singh one of these last few months, and I was asking him about the 1991-96 period where I think he did a very good job and he told me that during that period, within the government and his party, which was probably one of the better phases of his life, he virtually stood isolated.On the reforms front, even though (then) Prime Minister Narasimha Rao was backing him, he said at one meeting of the working committee, everybody blasted him (Manmohan Singh), but the changes he brought about did create an impact for the future. Therefore, Indian political system is slowly realising its impact, but UPA I and II did not realise it. They thought reforms only means you redistribute the existing resources. Now, India has to concentrate on increasing productivity, not merely redistributing the existing resources.Politics has its own dynamism. You have executive decision which you can take. Each decision has its own life. You have to explain it to people. You have the risk of people with the confused mind thinking that growth- oriented politics is only corporate-oriented policies. In fact, the best response to poverty is growth.It is ridiculous, because I have repeatedly said this government will expand businesses. It will use the enriched resources of the government for the poor. Therefore economy growing is going to help the poor, but this government does not believe in crony capitalism.There are two important and strong points. Foreign direct investment is picking up. FIIs, do not consider that to be really an investment for infrastructure and so on, but as far as FDI is concerned, it has picked up. The second, public investment will have to take that lead and is taking the lead, but there is a downside. The banking system, as a result of the slowdown, had almost 6% NPA and probably an equal amount of stressed assets. Banks were unwilling to lend and borrowers were unwilling to borrow. The interest rates were partly responsible for this because you had double-digit inflation scenario and, therefore, the capacities of the corporates themselves had been overstretched.I may take a very cynical view by saying that the government is doing so much, but what it is that the corporate is doing. I am in no mood to ask questions. In any case, people in a democracy pose questions to government. You do not ask questions from private sector.I have always said that I am expecting what everybody expects and that is the unanimous view in this country, but RBI has a responsibility of looking at various factors. They have to keep inflation under control. Therefore, from 11% to bring it down to 5%, for wholesale inflation to come down in the negative. We are obviously at liberty to comment, may be we would like it to be much faster and those in power have to do a more balanced job.No, I do not think I was ill-advised. Those who advise on these matters looked at the entire history of the last two decades. Reports after reports, including Governor Rajan's own report when he was in the finance ministry, have clearly said that this has to be an independent agency and, therefore, working within the RBI is not possible. So, gradually it has to move out.Now, I have had discussions with the RBI, both before and after the budget. I do not think, in principle, there is a problem. There is a problem how to do it in a phased manner. The government today does not have a structure as to who can do the PDMA management. It is the RBI which has the structure and the RBI structure will gradually move to the government and that it would not move under the government. It will move as an independent agency and they have to develop their own structure. It is, therefore necessary, that instead of doing it surgically, you take consultations with the RBI.Everything is not very comfortable and rosy if you are in government. MAT is one issue on which every comment being made about the government is unfair. For the reason there is not a single NDA decision on taxation, which has created adversity or any kind of hostile reaction in the market. These are only legacy issues. MAT is again a legacy issue. The controversy over MAT arose in 2012 where the advance ruling authority took a view different from its own 2010 view.The problem was created by the FIIs themselves. You had an existing opinion. You went for a fresh opinion and got a hostile opinion. Having got in 2012, you went off to sleep and the government, of course, from 2012 to 2014, had stopped functioning. They were doing nothing. It is only in 2015 when the deadline came as to what assessing officers do. An assessing officer does not want CBI at his door step. The FIIs represented to me to say that this is an unfair situation. This goes contrary to the understanding of Indian laws that they have. So I acted reasonably and clarified the law for the future.