Domestic cos must drive India’s growth story: Kant

Govt to hold roadshows, meetings with business leaders to revive investment, says DIPP secretary

NEW DELHI: The government is soon going to begin a first-of-itskind pan-india programme to reach out to India corporates in order to revive domestic investment, which has been sluggish for the past few quarters.

The department of industrial policy and promotion (DIPP) has decided to hold a series of meetings over the next two months with corporate chiefs in the business capitals of each state to take stock of the issues leading to delays and stalling of projects.

“In the long run Indian companies will have to drive India’s growth. In October IIP grew by 9.8% with manufacturing registering a jump of 10.6%. This is the time to provide impetus, support and handholding to all domestic companies,” Amitabh Kant, Secretary, DIPP told HT.

According to the department’s plan such “roadshows” or meetings will help synergise the Centre and state governments and create a better domestic investment climate. “We want to retain Indian investors’ confidence. The government has already spent a lot on improving the public infrastructure, such as investing a lot in roads, railways, better ports, opening up the coal sector. So a whole host of issues linked to infrastructure have been resolved and with these roadshows we want them to give pace to their investment cycle,” Kant added.

Both finance minister Arun Jaitley and commerce and industry minister Nirmala Sitharaman at various forums in the past have stated that domestic private sector investments have been slow and that the government is aware of the fact that procedures and policies need to be streamlined to put the country on a high growth trajectory.

As per the latest figures of the gross fixed capital formation, which is the addition of capital stock in India and can be treated as a proxy for investment activity, has witnessed a declined from almost 32% of GDP in 2012-13 to 30% of GDP in 2014-15. It was 30.1% in the July-september quarter of 2015-16.

To begin with DIPP will hold these roadshows first in Maharashtra followed by Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Haryana and Rajasthan.

“Once the discussions are done, the department will give a wrap to the Prime Minister’s Office and put across the issues of both the state government and the private sector, which will then be expedited for quick results,” Kant said.