By Our Correspondent
NEW DELHI: Union Minister of Finance & Corporate Affairs NirmalaSitharaman held her 8th Pre-Budget Consultation Meeting with the leading Economists here on Friday in connection with the forthcoming General Budget 2020-21.
The main focus areas of the discussions included steps needed to achieve $5 trillion economy, job-oriented growth with focus on manufacturing and services, transparency of fiscal arithmetic, monetary transmission, Government’s fiscal prudence and fiscal stimulus, revival of NBFCs and inflation targeting among others.
Along with the Finance Minister, the said aforesaid meeting was attended by Rajeev Kumar, Finance Secretary; AtanuChakraborty, Secretary, DEA;Ajay Bhushan Pandey, Revenue Secretary;Tuhin Kant Pandey , Secretary , DIPAM , Pramod Chandra Mody, Chairman, CBDT; Dr K.V. Subramanian, CEA, and other senior officials of the Ministry of Finance.
The Economists were optimistic about the India growth story and put forward ways through which India can achieve the goal of $5 trillion economy. Among the key suggestions were to attractmore investment to support growth; streamlining policy matters and faster resolution of policy issues in all sectors;fiscal management; reforms in the power sector; focus on long-term reforms through structural reforms in simplification of GST and Direct Tax Code reforms; securing supply chains for economy; fiscal deficit; continuity in economic policy making; land and labour reforms; ways to enhance rural demand; improve oversight of financial markets; reforms in small savings rate; boosting agricultural exports;simplifying procedures to give financial savingsa shot in the arm.
The major participants in the aforesaid meeting included Neelkanth Mishra, Credit Suisse; Rathin Roy, Director, NIFP; Sunil Jain, Managing Editor, Financial Express; Shekhar Shah, Director General, NCAER; ArvindVirmani, Economist; Surjit S. Bhalla, Managing Director, O(X)US Investment; AbheekBarua, Chief Economist, HDFC Bank; SoumyaKanti Ghosh, Group Chief Economic Adviser, State Bank of India; Ajit Mishra, Director, Institute of Economic Growth; AjitRanade, Chief Economist, Aditya Birla Group; Shri PrasannaTantri, Assistant Professor (Finance), Indian School of Business; Rahul Bajoria, Chief Economist, Barclays Investment Bank and SuvodeepRakshit, Vice President, Kotak Securities Ltd.; Shri Sachin Chaturdvedi, Director General, RIS;among others.
