New Delhi: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday held discussions on regulatory environment impacting private investment and measures for promoting exports in a pre-budget consultation with stakeholder groups from industry, trade and services sectors.
The representatives submitted suggestions concerning the reduction of the compliance burden and tax litigation, allowing self-certification in a low-risk industry, decriminalisation of tax and company laws.
Besides, they demanded reduction of cost of equity capital, simplification and rationalisation of duties and labour laws, adoption of international standards of alternative dispute resolution, export development funds for helping MSME exporters and ease of investment flow into the manufacturing sector.
"The main areas of discussion during the aforesaid meeting included regulatory environment impacting private investment, measures for promotion of exports amidst rising protectionist tendencies, industrial production, logistics, media & entertainment services & IT & IT enabled services among others," an official statement said.
Speaking to reporters after the meeting, CII President Vikram Kirloskar said:"They (ministers and government officials) have understood the situation, the headwinds in the economy and they have looked at all the possible suggestions whether it is to have fiscal easing which is what we have suggested, various ways to improve tax collection, improve demand".
Ficci President Sandip Somany said the meeting delved into infrastructure bottlenecks in terms of the rules, regulations which can help free up business.
Assocham Secretary General Deepak Sood said a common suggestion was how to increase the demand side of the economy and inject liquidity into the system.
PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry President D K Aggarwal said the chamber has sought the creation of a Rs 25,000 crore fund for stressed micro, small and medium enterprises sector which faces difficulty in availing funds from banks and NBFCs.
FIEO President Ajay Sahai said the exporters' body has highlighted the liquidity concerns of exporters and sought rollout of e-wallet recommended by the GST Council to ease liquidity of exporters.
The meeting was also attended by Minister of State for Finance and Corporate Affairs Anurag Thakur; Finance Secretary Rajeev Kumar; Economic Affairs Secretary Atanu Chakraborty; Revenue Secretary Ajay Bhushan Pandey; among others.
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Implement Swaminathan report on MSP in Budget: Farmers body
Sitharaman also held a pre-budget consultations with different stakeholder groups from agriculture and agro processing sectors in connection with the forthcoming General Budget 2020-21.
The main areas of discussion during the meeting included agricultural marketing reforms, organic & natural farming, agricultural commodity markets & future trading, storage infrastructure for agricultural produce, animal husbandry, agro processing industry, ideas for reducing food subsidy among others, the ministry said.
Stakeholders' suggestions included building brands of Indian agricultural products abroad, giving processing industry benefits/importance equivalent to agriculture, accelerating depreciation benefit to agri-processing industries, and revamping the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bhima Yojna.
The government was also asked to revisit the Food Security Act.
National Collateral Management Services MD and CEO Siraj Chaudhury said there is a need to modernise storage in agriculture and food processing therefore needs private sector investment in this space. He also suggested that the Food Corporation of India should use such storage. "Today FCI is using only government storage, it should use private storage as well," he said.
Dasaratha Reddy of the Consortium of Indian Farmers Association (CIFA) said that they told the government "that the Rs 6,000 under the PM Kisan scheme will not help neither will a mere MSP increase".
Reddu also said that canal irrigation is very low and at the same time, 60 per cent of the rainfed crops are withering away. "Agriculture income has to be improved. MSP as per the M.S. Swaminathan Commission report has to be implemented which was a 2014 election manifesto promise (of the BJP)."
"Land lease rents have been omitted... 70 per cent of the farmers are recurrent farmers without land lease rent, they get negative return on investment.
"MSP should be fixed at cost (actual cost, family labour and land lease) and with 50 per cent profit as suggested by the Swaminathan committee," he added.
Arun Raste, Executive Director, National Dairy Development Board, said that they have sought budgetary provision to the National Diary Programme version 2 which is assisted by the World Bank and removal of current 30 per cent duty on live animal imports.
Along with the Finance Minister, the meeting was attended by Minister of State for Finance and Corporate Affairs Anurag Thakur, Finance Secretary Rajeev Kumar, and Economic Affairs Secretary Atanu Chakraborty.
