Ficci president Sangita Reddy on Sunday said India’s strategy of dealing with the Covid-19 crisis has paid off and the country’s economy is set to bounce back and emerge stronger.

She said it was time to take bold actions and push the growth agenda vigorously.

“The dilemma for governments across the world was creating a balance between protecting lives and livelihoods. India took the path of a strict lockdown to ramp up health infrastructure and focused on human lives. This strategy has paid off,” Reddy said.

She observed that science evolved to give better cures, medical infrastructure was created, supplies such as PPEs ramped up and our death rate has been contained.

“It’s clearly time for bold actions on the livelihood front. The recent monetary policy assures that the government and the regulator will do everything it takes to keep the economy afloat. Let us start pushing our growth agenda vigorously,” said Reddy.

“As we can see the initial green shoots of recovery have begun,” she added.

Reddy noted that the PMI for manufacturing and services has recovered to 56.8 and 49.8, respectively, in September 2020. Besides, there has been a pick-up in e-way bill volumes, improvement in revenue earning freight traffic of major commodities, positive growth in exports and most significantly increase in the September GST collections to almost pre-Covid level.

“Initiatives like consumption vouchers must continue to remain focused on demand generation,” Reddy said.