Comments
The Government is in parleys with the Bharatiya Janata Party to allay its concerns over foreign direct investment (FDI) in multi-brand retail. This overture is aimed at ensuring smooth passage of as many as 25 key legislations in the winter session of Parliament.
Speaking to the media at the Indian Banks’ Association’s 33{+r}{+d} Bankers Conference, which is being hosted by Bank of Maharashtra in Pune, Finance Minister P. Chidambaram expressed the hope that once the main opposition party is convinced about the utility of FDI then there would be no hurdles in passing key legislations.
Among others, the Government is planning to introduce key legislations pertaining to banking, insurance, pension, food security and land acquisition in the current session of Parliament. Chidambaram said that he had spoken to BJP leaders Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley on Friday regarding their opposition to FDI in multi-brand retail.
Spectrum auction
Though the recent auction of second generation GSM spectrum netted the Government only Rs 9,400 crore against the minimum expected amount of Rs 28,000 crore, Chidambaram said this was not the end of the road.
The auction process will go into a couple of rounds before it can be termed a success or a failure, he said. The minister said that the Government will try and cap the fiscal deficit at 5.3 per cent of gross domestic product.
While emphasising that the Government and the RBI are not antagonistic to each other in managing the economy, Chidambaram said the two were targeting different objectives — while the government wants to propel growth, the RBI wants to rein-in inflation.
When our growth declines to 5.5 per cent, as it has in recent times and growth is likely to be around 5.5 per cent for the second quarter of the current fiscal, it goes without saying that the country faces a difficult situation, said Chidambaram.
“We have to overcome this difficult situation through innovation, through finding new ways, increasing the production of goods and services and finding new ways to help the poor in this country who depend on high growth for both jobs and incomes,” he said.
“Banks have a very important role to play. Banks must lead the way in reviving the economic growth in this country. I appeal to banks to work with government in leading the way in reviving the economic growth in the country,” Chidambaram said.
Comments
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.