Centre is planning another stimulus relief package, hints Union finance secretary
New Delhi: Union Finance secretary Ajay Bhushan Pandey on Sunday implied that the administration is chipping away yet another stimulus package but he shunned giving a time-span.
“We keep monitoring the situation on the ground to assess which sector of the economy or segment of the population needs what kind of help at which time and respond accordingly. We keep taking suggestions from industry bodies, trade associations, various ministries and after going through their suggestions and requirements of the economy, we come out with timely measures,” Ajay Bhushan Pandey said in an exclusive interview to a news agency.
Pandey said that he was unable to give a timeframe for the stimulus package, but the government is planning something big and deliberations on further interventions were on.
Discussing the present status of the economy, Mr Pandey said that the economy was recuperating and moving towards sustained development.
The October GST assortment has been ₹ 105,155 crore which is 10% higher year-on-year for the comparing month a year ago. This September, the economy had additionally demonstrated 4 percent development at ₹ 95,480 crore in GST assortments y-o-y. Further, the nation has seen a development in power utilization, fares, and imports, he said.
September and October information shows that we have arrived at Pre-COVID-19 level and gone into positive region. On the off chance that we contrast and the most recent year, the E-Way bill in September has seen year on year development of 10% and in October it has seen a development of 21 percent, he said.
In the event that we can keep up this development for the following five months, at that point we can say that we can change from profound negative zone to approach zero development zone by March 2021. Global Monetary Fund (IMF) has extended India’s’ GDP to contract 10.3 percent this financial year, reconsidered from its figure of a 4.5 percent decrease in June, he added.
The Reserve Bank of India had a month ago said that the economy is probably going to shrink by 9.5 percent in the current financial. Gross domestic product contracted 23.9 percent in the principal quarter of the financial, according to the assessments of the Central Statistics Office (CSO).
The Finance Secretary said the legislature has begun electronic solicitations from October 1. On a normal 8 lakh solicitations were being created every day. It got rapidly and on October 30, in a solitary day 29 lakh electronic solicitations were created. In the event that we see the development of the FMCG, auto areas, it shows that we are going toward supported development, he said.
Pandey stated, we are examining each area and this is a constant cycle. Since the COVID-19 flare-up, we have been ceaselessly observing each area. Whatever was needed for helping transients, weak areas of the rustic or metropolitan populaces, we did. At the point when the country was in lockdown, we offered money to ladies Jan Dhan account holders in their financial balances through DBT. We gave early portions to ranchers under PM Kisan Yojana.
We helped workers and businesses in their EPF commitment. We reserved ₹ 3 lakh crore for improved working cash-flow to MSMEs, out of which ₹ 2 lakh crore has been endorsed and sums are being dispensed. MSMEs were likewise given the advantages of credit ban. We have given personal duty discounts of ₹ 1.27 lakh crores in most recent seven months. We have given GST discounts of ₹ 70,000 crore, he added.
He said that an absolute discount of ₹ 2 lakh crore has been given over the most recent seven months. During this period, income assortments were affected yet the administration didn’t stop or hinder the discounts.
Precluding the chance of any cut in GST rates in not so distant future during the COVID pandemic, he said that there is some unacceptable impression that rate cut lifts deals and development. One may see the case of cell phones. Cell phones are pulling in an 18 percent GST rate from April 1, 2020, up from the previous pace of 12 percent, after the GST Council adjusted the modified obligation structure. Presently observe the current marketing projections for cell phones. However the expanded assessment rate, their deals are up, he said.
Continuous fiddling with the expense rates isn’t useful for the economy. It also imparts wrong signs to homegrown industry and worldwide speculators. We need to give security and consistency in our duty frameworks, he added.