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| Sitharaman asks India Inc to be more risk-taking, commit investments |
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New Delhi, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Wednesday made fervent appeal to India Inc for making investment and helping the government cut import bills.
She also asked the industry to come forward in reducing income disparity and create more jobs.
Speaking at an event organised by industry body CII, the Finance Minister asked the industry to bring in new technology and improve efficiency in the energy sector.
"Please come forward. This is a golden opportunity for India to stand up and prove that it can stand on its own its feet. Come forward, open up, expand, bring in new investments," Sitharaman said.
In a veiled reference to China, she said geo-politics has a bearing on geo-economics, suggesting that the Indian industry should reduce dependence on the neighbouring country for its supplies.
The Minister noted that government had substantially scaled up investment in infrastructure and would continue to keep focus on it.
Talking about the runaway success of the start-ups, Sitharaman said the new-age firms have rapidly found investors and in the last 12 months, as many as 36 of them have qualified as unicorns (start-ups with a value of over USD one billion).
She underlined that the technology-driven new-age industries are going to make big difference to the Indian economy going forward.
Stating that banks have made remarkable turnaround, the Minister said that while non-performing assets (NPAs) have come down, recoveries of loans have gone up.
"Initiatives taken up by Public Sector Banks (PSBs) showed an outstanding performance by earning profit in the first half of this financial year, nearly equal to that of the last full financial year. Facilitated by sustained recovery efforts, PSBs efficiently brought down the Net NPA to 2.9 per cent for the quarter ending September 2021, lowest in seven years," she said.
She further said that PSBs had raised market equity to a notable amount of over Rs 10,000 crore in the first half of this financial year, almost equal to that of the last financial year.
"During the nationwide credit outreach programme between October 16 to November 7, 2021, Rs 76,011.79 crore worth loans were sanctioned to 17.5 lakh accounts across the country," Sitharaman said.
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