Finance Minister Announcement: CII Chairman Applauds Reform & Liquidity Boosting Measures

By 121 News

Chandigarh May 17, 2020:-Nikhil Sawhney, Chairman, CII Northern Region, said that CII applauds the Reform & Liquidity boosting measures announced by the Finance Minister today covering 7 critical domains of MNREGA, Health & Education, MSMEs, Companies Act, Limiting PSU's presence in strategic sectors and Enhancing support to the states by linking progress on Reforms. The Industry feels that measures announced today and earlier in the week are going to be the real building blocks for a new Atam Nirbhar Bharat. 

The enhancement of Public Expenditure for ramping up the health Infrastructure especially in tier 2 & tier 3 cities, including setting up of Infectious Disease Blocks at District level Hospitals and bringing in facilities of Public Health Labs at Block levels with support from Private sector testifies the Government's intent to bring a proactive approach in dealing with such epidemics and crisis in future.

CII for long has been advocating Reforms which help in removing a sense of fear from the minds of our entrepreneurs and make compliance easy. Announcements made today by the Finance Minister with regard to de criminalizing many of the provisions of Companies Act, bringing many of the provisions of Insolvency under compoundable offences, announcing Special Insolvency framework for MSME's are going to infuse a sense of confidence among the entrepreneurial fraternity.

Further the decision of the Government to not include the debts related to Covid under the category of defaults and bringing a moratorium on filing of fresh insolvency proceeding for upto 1 year will be a big relief to the Industry reeling under the Covid impact.

One of the hallmarks of the series of announcements today have been the emphasis on structural reforms which CII has been advocating for quite long especially in sectors which have hitherto been the turf for PSU's. The Government's decision to bring in a coherent Policy defining Strategic sectors wherein Private companies could also operate besides the Public Sector Undertaking but not more than 4 in a particular sector is indeed a bold reform. This we feel would not only encourage more inward investments but help in bringing new technologies, efficiencies & processes besides of course creating abundant Job opportunities.

We, in CII Northern Region feels the last set of reform announcements made today with regard to increasing the states borrowing limit from 3% of State's GSDP to 5% and linking it up with the progress made by states in implementing reforms of 1 Nation 1 Ration Card, Ease of Doing Business, Power Distribution and Urban Local Bodies testifies the Government's resolve to take the states along in implementing reforms and strengthen the Federal structure which will help the Governments to ensure that the benefits of its schemes and programmes are delivered to the last mile.