Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Friday the government has taken concrete measures to implement a planned strategy for economic growth.
Some of the steps include enabling retail credit by non-banking finance companies (NBFCs), housing finance companies (HFCs), clearing all government dues including those of public sector units, supporting MSMEs via bill discounting and tax refunds.
On the investment side, the government has taken steps to boost investment, support real estate, credit expansion, corporate tax and bank recapitalisation.
Measures have also been taken to boost consumption in the economy. Revenue Secretary Ajay Bhushan Pandey said tax refunds this year total Rs 1.57 lakh crore compared to Rs 1.23 lakh crore last year.
“The government has been working for the economy where it is needed. Results have started showing for the economic reforms we have taken,” she said while addressing a press conference here along with Chief Economic Advisor K V Subramanian and Revenue Secretary Ajay Bhushan Pandey.
“The continuous liberalisation has resulted in record foreign direct investment inflows of 35 billion dollars in the first half of 2019-20 as against 31 billion dollars in the first half of 2018-19,” he said.
On onion prices she said “At many places, onion prices have fallen down. We have a Group of Ministers, which is reviewing the situation regularly and deciding on how to further take up the import-related issues regarding onions. The onion crop was damaged due to heavy rains and flood,” said Sitharaman here at a press conference.
Subramanian also said that under the new external benchmarking scheme announced by the Reserve Bank of India, more than 8.18 lakh or Rs 72,201 crore worth of loans were sanctioned till November 27.
“Within two days of cabinet approval, 17 proposals worth more than Rs 7,000 crore were approved. Proposals worth Rs 20,000 crore will be approved over the next two weeks under the partial credit guarantee scheme,” he said.
Input tax credit (ITC) refunds were at Rs 33,395 crore in 2020 as compared to Rs 36,513 crore in 2019, he said.
(With ANI Inputs)