New Delhi:
India Inc on Monday asked Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to clear hurdles facing large projects and create an environment for investment driven growth, that has taken a battering due to external and internal factors.
Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani, ICICI Bank MD and CEO Chanda Kochhar, HDFC Chairman Deepak Parekh, along with heads of leading industry chambers brainstormed with the Prime Minister the problems facing the country and the nation.
Others who attended the meeting include Rahul Bajaj, Narayana Murthy, Azim Premji, Swati Piramal, Deepak Parekh, Jamshyd N Godrej, Venu Srinivasan, Sunil Kant Munjal, S Gopalakrishnan and Sunil Bharti Mittal, among others.
The high-level meeting of the Prime Minister's Council on Trade and Industry was attended by Finance Minister P Chidambaram, Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma and PMEAC Chairman C Rangarajan, among others.
Prime Minister wanted a report within a month on what could be done in the next 2-3 months to revive growth.
"We have given suggestion in two categories, one for near term and one for longer run. For near term, we have suggested clearing of large projects and those projects which were cleared should now be executed," Ficci President and HSBC India head Naina Lal Kidwai said after the meeting that lasted 160 minutes.
PM promises more reforms
With no clear signs of economic turnaround, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today promised more reforms in the coming months as he met captains of industry and business who pushed for bold decisions and quick implementation.
At a meeting of PM's Council on Trade and Industry, he assured India Inc of government's commitment to reforms and promised more measures as he heard the business communities' complaints and suggestions to boost investors sentiment.
The agenda focused on measures to correct the current account deficit, the industrial slowdown and measures to revive it, rupee depreciation and its impact on trade and industry, skill development and development of industrial corridors.
The overall sentiment was on the need to bring back the mood, converting decisions to action and taking the country back to a growth path of 8 per cent or more, a PMO statement said.
"The Prime Minister wanted a report to be submitted within one month on what can be done in the next 2-3 months," it said after the meeting that lasted about 3 hours. Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani said the industry believe in India growth story, a sentiment echoed by Bharti Group chief Sunil Mittal, who also wanted the government to take "brave and bold" in taking decisions.
The industry will rise to the occasion, Mittal said, according to sources.
