Government focusing on increasing consumption to boost economic growth: CEA

Chief Economic Advisor Krishnamurthy Subramanian on Friday said the government is focusing on increasing consumption to boost economic growth. Presenting steps taken by the government in the past few months to pull the economy out from a six-year low growth, he said the measures include corporate tax cuts to improve risk-return of companies.

Also, capitalisation of public sector banks and giving last-mile funding to realty projects was announced. As much as Rs 4.47 lakh crore has been sanctioned to non-banking financial institutions and housing finance companies to support retail lending, he said, adding that 17 proposals amounting to Rs 7,657 crore had been approved under partial credit guarantee scheme.

Also, 66 per cent of budgeted capex of Rs 3.38 lakh crore has already undertaken, he said. Railway and road ministries will have undertaken capex of Rs 2.46 lakh crore by December 31. More than 8 lakh repo-linked loans amounting to Rs 70,000 crore have been sanctioned till November 27, he added. Also, Rs 60,314 crore of capital has been infused into PSU banks. Lenders have disbursed Rs 2.2 lakh crore to corporates and Rs 72,985 crore to MSMEs.

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