Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday asserted that the government is getting inputs from various sectors of economy and is responding accordingly to restore their confidence.
"I don't want to go into classifications which you want to do it that way. We are getting inputs from various sectors and trying to respond so that confidence of those sectors is restored", she said in reply to questions at a press conference after chairing a meeting with the heads of public and private sector banks
'Do youthink that the current economic environment is worrying?' she was asked.
To a question on her proposed meeting this week with industry leaders in a bid to fix economy, Sitharaman said, "There are SMEs, the industry leaders, the automobiles, the real state and property buyers, separate consultations are going on with all. The essential idea behind the meeting is to hear from them and quickly after that come up with something which can help them."
She also said that there has not been much movement on the issue of sovereign bonds since after budget the ministry were pre-occupied with various important bills to be introduced in this session,
"Sovereign bonds were mentioned in the budget. I know some numbers were floating around. There is not much work after the mention because we were busy with other things in the ministry and we had three bills to bring. On the sovereign bond nothing more has been done", she said.
Sitharaman also stated that the government was open to hearing from foreign portfolio investors.
Earlier in the day, Finance Secretary Rajiv Kumar has informed that Sitharaman will hold a series of meetings this week to take stock of the economy which has witnessed a downturn in recent quarters.
On Tuesday, she will meet representatives of micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) sector. With about 6.34 crore units across the country, MSMEs employ 12 crore people and contribute 20 per cent to the GDP and 45 per cent of overall exports from India.
On August 7, Sitharaman will meet business leaders from the automobile sector. Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari will also participate in the meeting.
About two lakh jobs have been cut across automobile dealerships in the past three months as vehicle retailers tide over the impact of an unprecedented sales slump. Passenger vehicles segment has been the worst hit with sales continuing to decline for almost a year now.
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