Fiscal Deficit Should not Bother US, says ASSOCHAM President Vineet Agarwal, 

Vineet Agarwal, the 40^th President of the Indian Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry (ASSOCHAM), is one of the young businessmen who has given a new direction to the country’s industrial transportation sector. A graduate from USA’s leading Carnegie Mellon University, Vineet completed the 'Owner President Management program' (OPM) from Harvard Business School. He is also the founding National President of the Young Leaders Council (YLC) at the All India Management Association (AIMA).

Besides heading the Transport Corporation of India, he had also been associated with various International Institutes and Industry forums including the Director of the Young President Organization (YPO). As Managing Director of the TCI, he transformed the organization towards value-added services in the area of supply chain management and multimodal logistics. He Spoke to Vijay Thakur, Special Representative, The Statesman on Industry’s expectation from the government in wake of Covid-19 Pandemic and what short and long term measures the government should take to bring the Indian Economy back on the track.

Excerpts

 

Question:

The entire world is passing through a very tough phase in the wake of Covid-19 pandemic. India too has been hit badly because of the pandemic. The government is going to present its first Union Budget after the pandemic. What are the Industry's expectations from the Modi Government?

Answer

 Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is going to present the the21-22 Budget under extraordinary circumstances. The entire world is passing through once in a hundred year kind of crisis. Even the most developed economies are grappling with the human and economic costs of the global health emergency.

We have proved many experts from the Western world wrong, who were projecting that India would take a long time to recover from the pandemic. But in fact, we recovered very fast and are now stressing about the future.

And a part of the credit goes to the immediate steps taken by the government including fiscal incentive to the industry and by giving support to common people by giving foodgrains. Coming to budget, the entire industry expects that the Modi government would take a bold step to put the economic recovery in the next gear.

I am of the view that Union Government should remain at the forefront of the Expense Budget with increased investment in infrastructure mainly road building, rural infrastructure, and a special focus on the healthcare sector in public as well as the private sector. The healthcare sector across the entire value chain, both in the public and private sectors. Any money spent on infrastructure will show three times its effect on ground zero.

It is obvious that the fiscal deficit is going to shoot up. But this is no time to think about the fiscal deficit. Under the given circumstances, the fiscal deficit of 7-8 percent of the GDP or even higher should not bother us as long as we spend on the productive sectors. The fiscal deficit numbers should not be compared with the past, at least for the next couple of years.

Question:

But Do not you think The government has already taken a series of steps to boost the country’s economy? 

Answer

To a great extent, the government has already taken several measures to boost manufacturing within the country, under the ambitious Atmanirbhar Bharat program. Schemes like the Production Linked Incentives for over a dozen sectors is already attracting international investors. The industry is expecting that such initiatives will get more leeway in the Budget.

There is no reason why India cannot become a global manufacturing hub for electronics, telecom equipment, something on the line of pharma sectors where we have emerged as a global leader.  

ASSOCHAM has submitted a detailed presentation to the Finance Ministry on tax and non-tax measures, the broad expectation is that the consumption-driven demand would get a boost which would automatically lead to the re-emergence of the private sector investment.

In the meantime, the government has to do the heavy lifting with help from the Reserve Bank of India. Sectors like real estate, agriculture, agrochemicals are expected to get a fillip. Besides, Industry hopes the government would give top priority to the sectors that have been worst affected by the Covid-19 pandemic mainly sectors like hospitality, transport, and aviation industry.

Question

Covid-19 has severely affected the small and medium sector (MSME). What do sops you suggest to bring MSME sector back on the track 

 

Answer:

While government has already taken measures to lift the MSME sector, the government should give them a further lift in terms of regulatory and fiscal support. The schemes like credit guarantee and mortgage-free loans should be broad-based.

While a lot has been done to ensure that their bills are paid expeditiously by the PSUs, government departments, the MSME sector need further cushioning and a liberal banking regime.

There are indications that India is moving towards a V-shaped recovery. However, to continue the industrial growth, we need consumption-led demand to balance supply-side measures and investment-led demand coming in from the government to create a multiplier effect.

Question

You said the government should increase investment in the infrastructure sector. Will you please elaborate it.

Answer

Industry is hoping that the Finance Minister would significantly raise the budget allocations for the ministries dealing with infrastructure sector like roads, highways, and rural development. A big leg-up is also expected in the healthcare sectors across the entire value chain. 

The Rs 110 lakh crore National Infrastructure Project Pipeline, with projects right across energy, healthcare, railways, ports, airports, roads and highways, and rural infrastructure should take India towards a modern and a state of the art economy.

Increased infrastructure investments are also coveted as it can help address the urgent need of job creation, create a multiplier effect in the economy and also enhance the country’s competitiveness to attract investments. 

We expect the industry and the Government to work in close coordination for sustainable economic growth. These efforts would need the support of the RBI which has played a pragmatic role in managing interest rates.

ASSOCHAM is happy that its long-standing recommendation to create an Infrastructure Bank, to fund port, road, and power projects, has now gained significance. Such a Bank will help the country enhance spending on productive assets.

Question

Other than budget what else you expect from the government to boost growth and demand in the Indian industrial sector.

Answer

One issue that the industry expects from the Modi government is to rationalize things like GST. There are some sectors, which are asking for the higher slab as they want higher input credit, at the same time there are some sectors that want to lower the GST slab since they do not want input credits. Now the government should rationalize the GST as per industry demand to give benefits to all. The rationalization of GST would ultimately immediately help many sectors. Consumption linked demand would also boost up due to the rationalization of GST. We are very hopeful about these short-term measures.

Ends.

 

Indian Agri-Scientists to produce heat-tolerant wheat varieties to improve improved grain yield

India may soon have a unique ‘heat tolerant’ wheat variety that would not affect its productivity under heat stress—which causes a dramatic reduction in yield and quality loss of wheat.

Thanks to a young Indian scientist who found a bio-engineering technology to develop 'heat-tolerant' wheat variety.

Wheat is one of the main crops world over and nurtures more than one third of the world population. The main problem in the wheat cultivation is that its production and nutrients reduces drastically in case of high temperature.

The Indian Scientist, Dr Vijay Gahlaut, who is faculty at the Biotechnology division at the Institute of Himalayan Bioresource Technology, Palampur (Himahcal) has found a heritable genes for the wheat crop that do not buckle under heat stress and non-stress conditions during different grain filling stages.

His research could be one of the most promising solutions to improve wheat productivity by engineering elite wheat varieties with enhanced heat stress tolerance and increase grain yield

He has further proposed to carry this out through a process called epigenomic mapping, which will also help in the identification of natural epigenetic variation.

 

In order to find a ‘heat-resistant wheat variety’, Dr Vijay Gahlaut, an Inspire Faculty Fellow of the Department of Science and Technology (DST), found the epigenetic route to modify gene expression in a manner that is stably transmitted but do not involve differences in the underlying DNA sequence. With this the heritable genes do not buckle under heat stress and non-stress conditions during different grain filling stages.

He has proposed to identify the role of DNA methylation (a biological process by which methyl groups are added to the DNA molecule) patterns of heat stress-tolerant and heat stress-sensitive wheat genotypes during different grain filling stages.

He would carry this out through a process called epigenomic mapping, which will also help in the identification of natural epigenetic variation. He has recently published his research in  the journal ‘Genomics’ and wrote on give details of the differential expression pattern of C5-MTase genes under heat stress suggesting their role in stress response in wheat. It would prove a major clue to producing heat-tolerant productive wheat varieties.

The utilization of identical genes that differ in the extent of methylation known asepialleles identified through his research could be one of the most promising solutions to improving wheat productivity by engineering elite wheat varieties with enhanced heat stress tolerance and increase grain yield.

Ends.

Illiterate Tribals learned a 'pleasant' lesson in the COVID-19 era, switched to e-commerce platform to survive

India has taken a great initiative by introducing E-commerce platforms to nearly 50 lakh tribals spread in the remotest parts of the country so as they could market their art and forest produce using digital platforms mainly Amazon, and Flipkart.

The initiative proved a big hit particularly at the time of Corona when the world economy suffered huge losses. The tribals in India not managed not only to survive but also opened a new window for their future trade that could be as high as Rs two lakh crore annually. As per a study conducted by the estimate made by Indian policy making institute--NITI Ayog, the annual trade of tribal art and forest produce is to the tune of Rs two lakh crore(approximately USD 2.5 billion).

Even if a small portion of the trade through E-commerce/digital platform, it would be near to India’s most famous platform Flipkart and Amazon. The TRIFED not only helped them to upload and sell their produce on these digital platforms, but also trained them how to get the best price of their produce on these platforms.

With Pandemic Covid-19 raging across the country when every aspect of life has gone online, TRIFED launched its own Virtual office on its Foundation Day, August 6, 2020. The network has 81 online workstations and 100 additional converging State and agency workstations that will help the team of TRIFED warriors work with their partners across the country – be they from the nodal agencies or implementation agencies –on Mission-mode towards bringing the tribal people closer to mainstream development.

‘Digital Literacy’ to tribals at the time of COVID-19 is probably one of the biggest achievements of the Ministry of Tribal Affairs Ministry in the year 2020-21, which launched a series of initiatives to bring tribals into the mainstream of business to switch on the e-commerce platform to sell their forest produce.

This year, when almost every business was going down due to corona, it was tribals who not only managed to survive but also ventured into the e-commerce business—thanks to TRIFED (The Tribal Cooperative Marketing Development Federation of India), which introduced e-commerce platforms including Amazon and Flipkart to tribals to sell their produce. In fact, it also set a target of Rs 100 crore to sell their produce.

In this fiscal year, the Ministry Tribal Affairs had also launched a program GOAL (Going Online As Leaders) to provide mentorship to tribal youth through digital mode. It was aimed to upskill and empower 5,000 tribal youths in the current phase to harness the full potential of digital platforms and tools to learn new ways of doing business, explore and connect with domestic and international markets.

“The digital skilling and technology will integrate them into the mainstream. The program was designed with a long term vision to develop the potential of tribal youth and women to help them acquire skills and knowledge,” said a senior officer of the Tribal Ministry. The program would further be extended to cover any number of tribal persons who show a keen interest in being mentored to achieve their goals, the ministry stated.

In addition to this, the Ministry also started a unique project ‘Tech for Tribal’ which was aimed to transform Tribal Entrepreneurs. The Project was aimed at capacity building and imparting entrepreneurship skills to tribal forest produce gatherers enrolled under the Pradhan Mantri Van Dhan Yojana(PMVDY). The trainees will undergo a 30 days program over six weeks comprising 120 sessions.

The faculty from premium institutes including IIT-Kanpur, IIT-Roorkee, IIM Indore, Kalinga Institute of Social Science, Bhubaneshwar and SRIJAN organized tribal entrepreneurship and skill development program for tribal forest produce gatherers, who were enrolled under the Pradhan Mantri Van Dhan Yojana(PMVDY). The trainees were given a 30 days program over six weeks comprising 120 sessions.

Besides digital literacy and skill development program, the Ministry also managed to introduce ‘MSP’ (Minimum Support Price) for 23 new forest produce so as the tribals get a reasonable price for their produce.

In another convergence -based initiative, TRIFED has planned the transformation from the Van Dhan mode to the Tribal enterprise mode. As per the program launched in August, entrepreneurs from tribal areas were encouraged for processing forest produce under SFURTI (Scheme of Fund for Regeneration of Traditional Industries) and TRIFOOD. In this cluster-based model of development, a typical SFURTI unit will include 10 Van Dhan Kendras (a cluster) and include 3000 households and encompass a tribal population of 15000 tribals. It has planned to take up 200 TRIFOOD projects across the country in the first phase in the coming months with the plan to initiate 100 TRIFOOD projects immediately.