NEW DELHI: With an eye on 2019 general elections, the Central government is planning a massive outreach for India Inc, especially with the corporate leaderships. It has asked the respective ministries to engage more frequently with business houses under their domain.
According to sources in various ministries, the government has mandated selected ministries to identify the dominant industry voices.
“This will be more of a targeted programme for outreach to India Inc. The purpose is to identify dominant industry figures, to engage with them and make them aware of the government’s policy achievements in the last four years. In doing so they will also be able to hear their grievances and can use meetings and conferences to clarify government’s stand on them,” a top official from the Finance Ministry told TNIE.
Apart from the corporate bigwigs, the ministries will also engage with industry associations, think tanks and trade unions, who are the media and social media influencers.
So, while the Power Minister will engage with power companies, power finance companies and power distribution companies, the Finance Ministry will engage with bankers, micro-finance and insurance companies, and the MSME Ministry will take care of small manufacturers.
According to sources, the whole outreach programme will be under the guidance of a team of ministers handpicked by the Prime minister himself.
“The whole purpose of the exercise is to make a more focused and targeted way to make the industry aware of the government’s past policies, future vision of the sector and immediate concerns on a more direct way, without the message being diluted,” said another official who is aware of the programme.
However, such outreach programmes are not new to the government. It is already running a campaign called ‘Sampark for Samarthan’, as a part of which 4,000 elected BJP members will target around 1 lakh newsmakers in politics, business, sports, movie, art and cultural fields. Under this programme, the top BJP members have already met corporate biggies like industrialist Ratan Tata, Yes Bank MD & CEO Rana Kapoor and Biocon chairperson Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw to name a few.