New Delhi: The Union Minister of Finance and Corporate Affairs, Nirmala Sitharaman held her Fourth Pre- Budget Consultation Meeting with the stakeholders from Infrastructure and Climate Change Sectors.
The main areas of discussion during the aforesaid Meeting included issues relating to bring in more capital to the infrastructure sector such as high ways, railways, telecom, auto-mobile including incentives for electric vehicles as well as for the Green Sector including renewable energy among others.
Along with the Finance Minister, the said Meeting was attended by Anurag Thakur, Minister of State for Finance and Corporate Affairs, Subhash C. Garg, Finance Secretary, Girish Chandra Murmu, Expenditure Secretary, Ajay Bhushan Pandey, Revenue Secretary, Atanu Chakraborty, Secretary, DIPAM, Sanjeev Ranjan, Secretary, Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, Ravi S. Prasad, Addl Secy, Climate Change, MoEF and CC, V.K. Yadav, Chairman, Railway Board, Pramod Chandra Mody, Chairman, CBDT, P.K Das, Chairman, CBIC, Dr K.V. Subramanian, CEA and other senior officials of the Ministry of Finance.
With an eye on creating sustainable and stable opportunities, suggestions from the representatives of Infrastructure Sector and experts of climate change included containing the rising cost of infrastructure projects, rationalisation of various levies in infrastructure sector, introduction of tax-free bonds to boost investment, streamlining of land acquisition process, creation of Green Technology Acceleration Fund, incentivising domestic manufacturing of solar energy equipment, fiscal incentives for development of Electric Vehicles industry, user development fee for up-gradation of railway stations, inclusion of telecom towers in plant and machinery category for GST purposes, promotion of non-fossil fuel based energy, redevelopment of wasteland and greater emphasis on recycling/up-cycling of waste material, imparting Infrastructure Status to Renewable Energy sector, provisions related to scraping of old vehicles and incentivising higher investment in R and D in automobile sector among others.
Stakeholders of Infrastructure Sector and experts on Climate Change who participated in Meeting included Nagendranath Sinha, Chairman, NHAI, Sanjeev Kumar Lohia, MD and CEO, Indian Railway Stations Development Corporation, Praveen Kumar, Additional CMD, Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency, Mahendra Singhi, President, Cement Manufactures’ Association, T.K. Malhotra, President, Automobile Association of Upper India (AAUI), Ajay Mathur, DG, TERI, Gautam Chikermane, Vice-president, Observer Research Foundation among others.
