Govt seeks industry inputs to create a budget like never before: Nirmala Sitharaman at CII
Dec 18, 2020
New Delhi [India], December 18 : Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Friday said that the government is seeking growth-inducing big ideas and inputs derived from introspection by industry, which would be used for formulating a 'budget as never before' and help India emerge as the engine for global growth and economic resurgence.
"India's economic resurgence will help the world to recover during this COVID-19 pandemic," stated Sitharaman during the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) Partnership Summit 2020, organised by CII in collaboration with the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), Ministry of Commerce and Industry.
Elaborating on the subject of 'Partnerships for Lives, Livelihood and Growth', the theme of the partnership summit, the minister said that these are the three keywords which have engaged the attention of policy-planners across the world and there was a need to build synergies between these elements.
The minister said that health and investment in health would be the top priority for the government in near future. This would entail more funding not only for buildings and infrastructure but also for creating capacities for frontline workers such as doctors, technology and skills for use of telemedicine, among others. The budget would take note of all the inputs received from the health sector to take this forward, she added.
She further said that India was fortunate to have the facility and capacity to not only produce the vaccine but also export the same for humanity's sake. She invited private participation to help the health sector scale up, by investing in medicinal R&D, biotech, and pharma R&D, among others.
The minister maintained that there would be a new canvas for addressing livelihood issues in the post-pandemic era. Newer systems such as work from home, new technology adoption, etc would become a part of emerging work culture for which the workers would need to be provided right skills and training. The government is engaging with stakeholders so that jobs are defined better and there is scope for a new crop of workers, women, and youth in employment.
On growth, the Finance Minister stated that while the pandemic created significant stress across the spectrum, the disruption was much less in rural India which showed its resilience. Future policies would need to address the right engines of growth, according to her.
Uday Kotak, President, Confederation of Indian Industry, in his remarks, said that the leitmotif of government's policy direction is to improve the business climate and in this direction, it has undertaken reforms in areas such as labour, digitisation, privatisation of non-strategic sectors, and policies to battle COVID, among others to provide opportunities for growth.
