Jaitley to meet corporates Friday for budget views

Finance minister Arun Jaitley will meet industry leaders Friday for their views on the budget, to be presented in July.

Jaitley began consultations Thursday with various stakeholders ahead of the final national budget to be presented next month, in the first such exercise both for him and the Narendra Modi government.

India Inc is keen that the new government take steps to boost the manufacturing sector, which has remained stagnant during the past two years. It wants policies to attract investments, and push infrastructure projects.

The finance minister first met representatives of the farm sector, including noted agriculture scientist and technocrat M.S. Swaminathan, and was scheduled to meet a group of civil society members later in the evening.

During the course of the next few days, he will also meet members of various industry bodies such as Ficci, CII and Assocham, besides the heads of state-run and private banks, sources said. He will also hold a separate meeting with trade groups.

Ahead of the meetings, Jaitley had attributed the current woes of the economy to the decade of what he termed as "jobless growth" and said his task will be to hasten the process of economic reforms, bring down prices and revive industrial sector.

"Reviving the growth momentum, containing inflation and altering the pattern of growth to gainful employment is today an overriding priority," the finance minister had said in his Facebook post two days ago.

"There is a need to boost domestic low-cost manufacturing and hasten the pace of reform. Price stability and growth are intertwined, but may require a different strategy. This will involve fiscal rectitude as a combination of monetary and fiscal policy."