NEW DELHI: Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Thursday highlighted the need to continue focusing on infrastructure creation, including increasing investments in the railways sector. A continued focus on maintaining the momentum in infrastructure creation would propel growth in the Indian economy, he said.
Speaking at the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry’s (FICCI) annual general meeting, Jaitley pointed out that India has one of the highest spending on infrastructure creation in the world.
“However, there is a need to hurry up investment in railways, in areas like stations and super fast and bullet trains,” he said. “Infrastructure development is at the core of India’s growth story. while highways, ports and aviation are growing well, the railways need to speed up its infrastructure development scheme.”
Jaitley also pointed out that a main area for development in rural areas would be housing and sanitation, with expenditure set to be focused on these two areas over the next few years.
Jaitley also reiterated the government’s measures to strengthen the public sector banking space, pointing out that the massive `2.11 lakh crore recapitalisation plan for PSBs would improve lending capacity of Indian banks considerably. “This was constrained earlier due to capital inadequacy.,” he pointed out, adding that improving lending capacity would be a priority for the government over the next year. “The task before the government is to fix the banks so that they are no longer averse to lending to small borrowers,” he said.
India, Jaitley said, has realised the importance of structural changes despite a global economic slowdown. “The country saw more structural changes in 2017 than the recent past,” he said.