Arun Jaitley Discusses Ways To Revive Economic Growth
Finance ministry officials will make a presentation before Modi on steps to rejuvenate the economy.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Tuesday reviewed the state of the economy, including the export scenario and infrastructure spending, as the government looks to revive economic activity to boost growth.
The review meeting, which lasted for over two hours, was also attended by Commerce Minister Suresh Prabhu, Railway Minister Piyush Goyal and Niti Aayog Vice Chairman Rajiv Kumar, government officials said on the condition of anonymity.
Besides, Additional Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister PK Misra, Commerce Secretary Rita Teaotia, secretaries in the Finance Ministry and Chief Economic Adviser Arvind Subramanian were part of the deliberations.
This meeting was a follow up of Monday’s meeting which Jaitley held in New Delhi.
After finalising a detailed roadmap for the economy, Jaitley and finance ministry officials will make a presentation before the Prime Minister on steps that could be taken to rejuvenate the economy.
Modi was scheduled to interact on Tuesday with Jaitley and other officials on the state of economy but the meeting has been postponed. No new dates have been proposed as yet.
The Prime Minister's Office has asked the finance ministry to hold consultations with key ministries to prepare a matrix of government revenue and spending as well as the measures needed to arrest the decline in GDP growth, the sources said.
Two years ago, India was touted as a rare bright spot in a gloomy global economy with GDP growth outpacing a slowing China. But since early 2016, GDP growth has fallen for six consecutive quarters, dipping to a three-year low of 5.7 percent in the April-June quarter with India losing the fastest growing economy tag to China for the second straight quarter.
Sectoral reasons and action points will be prepared, they said, adding that high-level discussions with ministries such as railways to assess the capital requirement for the year were held on Monday and more such meetings will follow.
Officials familiar with the matter said the government is keen on addressing structural problems facing the economy as well as transient issues with the implementation of the Goods and Services Tax. GST was touted to boost growth by up to 2 percentage points but technical glitches in the first two months of implementation have led to a scare that government’s revenues may fall way short of expectations.
Targeted government spending given the limited fiscal space available particularly on infrastructure, along with fixing the problems with GST and focusing on sectors and industries that create jobs are the prime focus, the same officials added.
