With coronavirus crisis raising the spectre of investments drying up in the economy, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday held a high level meeting to discuss strategies to attract more foreign investments into India as well as promote local investments.
The meeting attended by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal, besides others, discussed a scheme to develop plug and play” infrastructure in the existing industrial lands, plots or estates, whereby only the implementation-ready projects having all clearances in place would be allocated through a transparent auction process akin to coal block allocation.
The plug-and-play concept, apart from speeding up the project, helps attract funds from the financial institutions at a faster rate.
Detailed discussions were also held on guiding states to evolve their strategies and to be more proactive in attracting investments, an official statement said after the meeting.
The meeting discussed various reforms initiated by ministries before the lockdown on March 21, with the Prime Minister emphasising that the reforms should continue unabated.
Modi said action should be taken for a more proactive approach to “handhold” the investors, to look into their problems and help them in getting all the necessary central and state clearances in a time-bound manner.
Later in a tweet, Modi said, “the meeting discussed ways to boost investment, both international and domestic. Issues relating to India’s reform trajectory were also discussed so that growth can be accelerated".
(Published 30 April 2020, 17:29 IST)
JOIN US