Will announce more measures to boost economy in the coming weeks: Nirmala Sitharaman

Guwahati: The government could soon announce more measures to boost the economy, topping up the mega package unveiled last Friday, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman has said. “Consumption needs a boost…. more measures to accelerate economic growth are in the pipeline and would be announced in the coming weeks,” the minister told reporters in Guwahati on Thursday.

She said spending on infrastructure would be the government’s priority. “We can frontload some public spending by the government,” she said. Sitharaman is in Guwahati as part of a multi-city tour to interact with tax officials, trade and business representatives. She said measures, which included roll back of super-rich surcharge on foreign portfolio investors, had received positive response from the industry.

“The measures announced last week were worked out after elaborate discussions with the industry. We have taken into account the problems faced by a sector. Like the non-banking financial companies faced the problem of liquidity and in our measures we have tried to address it,” she said.


Asked about what the government planned to do with the money transferred by RBI and if it would be used for stimulus package to arrest the slowdown, she said the money was transferred to the government as per the recommendation of the Bimal Jalan committee set up by RBI. The government will take a call on how to use the money, she said.

ON CONGRESS CAMPAIGN
On Congress launching ‘unfit government, unfit economy’ campaign to counter the NDA government's ‘Fit India’ campaign, Sitharaman said the Congress party led the most unfit government in one decade with double-digit inflation and large-scale corruption. “Congress party ran the government where there was double-digit inflation and prices were sky rocketing," she said.

"There was corruption in 2G and in coal. They (Congress) were the most unfit government and people of the country had given them a befitting reply in general election in 2014 and 2019… They must learn the lesson," she said.