Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday said the fundamentals of the Indian economy were strong and it had the capacity to bounce back.
Modi, who seems to have taken charge of the efforts to revive the economy, has over the past few days held multiple brainstorming meetings with different stakeholders over various issues affecting the economy and to thrash out appropriate policy interventions in the upcoming budget.
The Prime Minister met economists, private equity and venture capitalists, business leaders and agri experts on Thursday at the Niti Aayog, and called for focussed efforts from all stakeholders at a time GDP growth in this fiscal is projected at 5 per cent, which will be an 11-year low, making it difficult to reach Modi’s much vaunted goal to turn India into a $5 trillion economy by 2024.
The high-profile meeting — where finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman was conspicuous by her absence — was attended by home minister Amit Shah, road transport and highways minister Nitin Gadkari, commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal besides Niti Aayog vice-chairman Rajiv Kumar, CEO Amitabh Kant and other senior officials of the think-tank.
Bibek Debroy, chairman of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister, too, was present at the meeting. A PTI report said Sitharaman was not present as she was holding pre-budget meetings with party workers at the BJP headquarters.
The meeting assumes significance as the government is in the process of formulating the budget proposals for 2020-21. At the meeting, Modi stressed on the importance of tourism, urban development, infrastructure and farm-based industries as growth generators.
Challenges
The participants highlighted certain bottlenecks such as credit expansion, export growth, governance of public sector banks, increasing consumption and job creation.
Among others, the meeting was attended by NIPFP economist Ila Patnaik, KKR India CEO Sanjay Nayar, MakeMyTrip CEO Deep Kalra, Dabur India chief Mohit Malhotra and Bandhan Bank MD and CEO Chandra Shekhar Ghosh.
