FM Nirmala Sitharaman to start two-day visit to Mumbai from Tuesday

Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will be visiting the financial capital for two days starting on Tuesday to meet key stakeholders.

She will begin the day with a meeting with officials from the Income Tax department in the Bandra Kurla Complex business district and follow it up with deliberations on the indirect tax side by meeting officials from goods and services tax and customs departments, according to a tweet from her office.

Sitharaman is also meeting industry leaders in a gathering organised by lobby grouping CII.

This is the first visit by the finance minister since the onset of the pandemic and comes at a time when a greater focus is on the government for aiding recovery because high inflation constrains the RBI.

On the second day of the visit, Sitharaman will be undertaking an annual performance review of public sector banks in BKC itself, according to the tweet.

This will be followed with an event organised by Indian Banks Association (IBA) to launch "Enhanced Access and Service Excellence" (EASE) 4.0 in the same business district, it said.

The minister is also scheduled to address a press conference with select journalists on Wednesday afternoon, officials said.

Sitharaman on Monday announced a Rs 6 lakh crore National Monetisation Pipeline (NMP) that will look to unlock value in infrastructure assets across sectors ranging from power to road and railways.

Projects have been identified across sectors, with roads, railways and power being the top segments.