FM holds marathon meeting with states, calls for scaling up investment

New Delhi, Nov 15 (UNI) Noting that global and domestic investors are upbeat about India in the wake of series of reforms carried out by the Centre, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday asked states to leverage the opportunity to scale up investments and growth.

In a marathon meeting with state Chief Ministers, Finance Ministers and Lieutenant Governors, Sitharaman said that there is a significant potentially monetizable asset base in states which could be leveraged to enhance the capital available for new infrastructure creation and other social sector pressing priorities.

meanwhile, the Centre would release a total of Rs 95,082 crore to states as part of tax devolution to boost spending on infrastructure.

“I have suggested to the Finance Secretary that on 22nd November, instead of the normal monthly installment of tax devolution amount of Rs 47,541 crore, I have asked to release another Rs 47,541 crore – a total of Rs 95,082 crore will be given to states on November 22,” the Finance Minister said while briefing the media after the meeting.

She noted that GST compensation agreed upon for this entire year has already been given by early November.

Some state Chief Ministers requested for front-loading of a part of the tax devolution for the current financial year in order to increase the states’ capital expenditure.

As many as 15 state CMs, Lieutenant Governor of Jammu and Kashmir, two Deputy Chief Ministers and state finance ministers or their representatives attended the high-level meeting.

Sitharaman emphasised that the economy has been growing significantly post the second wave of pandemic and indicators such as imports, exports, PMI manufacturing, digital payments, etc. have already reached pre-pandemic levels.

The meeting was held in the wake of enhanced investment climate in the country and the opportunities accorded by a shift in geo-political realities post pandemic, an official statement said.

The Finance Minister said that the Government of India has taken concrete steps to increase capital spending and drive an infrastructure and investment-led growth.

Sitharaman urged states to help India become the fastest growing economy in coming years, through facilitating investment attractiveness and expediting ease of doing business measures and undertake power reforms.

She further emphasized that since in many cases land is one of the major bottlenecks for project on-grounding, states must contrive to smoothen land acquisition procedures and create land banks to be tapped at the time of investment.

Sitharaman also asked states to strengthen their urban local bodies (ULBs) in light of the fact that there has been decidedly a larger allocation to ULBs than earlier and are increasingly been encouraged to pursue resource mobilization.

During the meeting, many states came up with suggestions and ideas to facilitate investment promotion. One of the suggestions was to create transparent mechanism for investment facilitation that involves sharing with states leads of prospective investors who are in touch with Centre.

Need for strengthening of the dispute resolution mechanism, post-award contract enforcement and of model concession agreements to strengthen infrastructure PPP ecosystem were also discussed.