Pranab's meeting with captains of India Inc postponed

"The meeting has been postponed for sometime," an official source told PTI, adding that the meeting would now happen after a new Minister takes charge of the Finance Ministry.

Yesterday, meeting of the Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM), which is headed by the Finance Minister, was deferred.

Mukherjee, who is the UPA's nominee for the Presidential election, is likely to resign as Finance Minister within a week to contest for the highest post in the country.

Following his resignation, the Prime Minister will have a choice to either retain the portfolio with himself or appoint a new Finance Minister.

The meeting, which was scheduled to happen on June 26, was mainly to assess the industry's concerns about the economy and also measures to boost the economy.

The industrial output growth rate remained flat in April recording a growth of just 0.1 per cent mainly due to poor performance of the manufacturing and mining sectors and lower output of capital goods.

Besides global factors, tight liquidity conditions at home have also led to decline in economic growth rate which fell to nine-year low of 6.5 per cent in 2011-12.

Battling perception of policy paralysis, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had earlier this month met industry leaders and had set an investment target of at least Rs 2 lakh crore for core sector projects in the current fiscal.

Singh also held a brainstorming session with key ministers with a view to give boost to investment in the infrastructure sector.