Sitharaman holds 2nd Pre-Budget Consultation with Representatives of Industry

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New Delhi : Union Finance & Corporate Affairs Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on June 11, 2019, held here her second Pre-Budget Consultations with the stakeholder Groups from Industry, Trade and Services Sectors.

In her opening remarks, Sitharaman said that the Central Government has taken several industry specific initiatives since 2014 that had significantly improved the overall business environment. She said that the emphasis was given to simplification and rationalisation of the existing rules and introduction of Information Technology to make governance more efficient and effective.

As a result, the Finance Minister said, India has considerably improved its ranking to 77^th position among the 190 countries and has kept 23 ranks over its rank of 100 in the Doing Business Report 2018 as per the World Bank Doing Business (DB) Report, 2019. Sitharaman also mentioned that since 24 % of the total work force in India is in industrial sector, therefore, in order to reap the benefits of demographic dividend, industry should be able to accommodate more work force, the Minister concluded.

Along with the Finance Minister, the meeting was attended by  Anurag Thakur, Minister of State for Finance and Corporate Affairs, Subhash C Garg, Finance Secretary, Girish Chandra Murmu, Expenditure Secretary, Ajay Narayan Pandey, Revenue Secretary, Rajeev Kumar, Secretary, DFS,  Atanu Chakraborty, Secretary, DIPAM,  Yogendra Tripathi, Secretary, Ministry of Tourism, Amit Khare, Secretary, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Ramesh Abhishek, Secretary, Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade, Anup Wadhawan, Secretary, Department of Commerce, Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Pramod Chandra Mody, Chairman, CBDT, P K Das, Chairman, CBIC, Dr K V  Subramanian, CEA and other senior officials of the Ministry of Finance.

Representatives of Industry, Services and trade Sectors included Vikram S. Kirloskar, President, Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), Balkrishan Goenka, President, ASSOCHAM,  Sandip Somany, President, FICCI,  Pramod Agrawal, Chairman, Gem & Jewellery Export Promotion Council, Animesh Saxena, President, Federation of Indian Micro and Small & Medium Enterprises (FISME), Ajit Kumar, and Director, Hinduja Group, Rajni Aggarwal.

With a view to giving boost to Indian economy, the representatives of  Industry, Services and Trade Sectors submitted several suggestions concerning Industrial sector, land reforms, special economic zones, industrial policy, investment in research and development, simplification of tax regimes, tapping potential in tourism sector, Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), Good & Services Tax (GST), Capital Gains Tax, Corporate Tax, MSME Sector, e-commerce, skill development, education and healthcare sectors, start-ups, media and entertainment sector and food manufacturing industry, according to a PIB release.