More steps soon to help economy: Nirmala Sitharaman

Guwahati: Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman here on Thursday said that the Union government is going to announce more measures to boost the economy in the coming weeks.

Asserting that spending on infrastructure would be the priority of the government, Ms Sitharaman told reporters that the interactions with industry representatives and stakeholders were going on.

“We can frontload some public spending by the government,” she added.

Rejecting the criticism of Opposition political parties, the finance minister said that the Narendra Modi administration is a responsive government and will come back with answers asked by the various groups. The finance minister, who had a day-long interaction with tax officials, chartered accountant and tax payers, reiterated that tax officials should not over-reach in a bid to reach their targets, which she labelled as “not impossible but achievable.” It is significant that the finance minister recently said that tax officials have been asked to careful to not punish businessmen or hand out glaring sentences for small violations, as several businessmen have accused tax authorities of harassment.

On asked about the impact of recent economic measures, the minister  said that the impact of the economic measures would be seen with time, even as the initial response has been encouraging.

“It’s too early to judge the industry’s response to government’s steps,” she added.

She, however, admitted that it has been recognised that consumption needs a boost.

Earlier last week, Finance Minister had announced a host of reforms including partially doing away with the additional surcharge on FPIs introduced in the budget. The other measures were related with angel tax, bank recapitalisation and income tax notices. The government has also announced that no angel tax would be imposed on startups and their investors if registered with the DPIIT. The government also announced that it would release upfront the Rs 70,000 crore of funds under bank recap plan announced earlier in the budget.

The union cabinet on Wednesday had eased foreign direct investment (FDI) norms for various industries such as single-brand retail, coal mining, contract manufacturing and digital media. The domestic enterprises, sourcing the products outside India, will be able to incorporate regional manufacturing units within India after the induction of 100 per cent FDI in contract manufacturing.