Railway Minister Piyush Goyal on Wednesday welcomed the announcements made by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman regarding the economic package, saying that she has given wings to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's vision for a self-reliant India.
"I welcome the announcements of the Finance Minister who has today given wings to PM Modi's vision for a self-reliant India and has provided the threshold in the first series of announcements to give wings to the Indian economy, to set the economy on the path of growth and revive economic activity in the post COVID-19 world," Goyal told .
"As the country emerges out of the lockdown, our MSME sector which is the foundation of the country's economy has been given government guaranteed loan facility, up to 20 per cent of their outstanding limits which will obviously come at a very low interest cost given the fact that it will be a government guaranteed loan seamlessly transmitted to lakhs of our MSME sector compes and giving encouragement to provide work opportunities and jobs to lakhs and crores of migrant workers who work in these MSME compes," he added.
He said the Finance Minister has also given equity support to the stressed and NPA MSMEs who over the last few years have been in some difficulty but now have an opportunity in the post-COVID world to take their products for the export market, to meet the growing demand of Indian consumers.
He said quity support is also there for those MSMEs who wish to grow in the years to come.
"The definition of MSME also has been expanded to enable them to grow. In Government contracts up to Rs 200 crores (they) will get preference and will only allow made in India products, bidding off by Indian compes," said Goyal.
A series of other announcements supporting NBFCs, HFCs, housing projects, extended timelines given to compes to file returns for assessment, the huge amount of Rs 90,000 crore given to the discoms so that they can easily expand their requirements of power, fund all the outstandings of the power sectors and take the power sector forward by clearing all the old dues of the generating compes is also a very powerful and strong announcements, he added.
"All in all the Finance Minister under the guidance of PM Modi, in the first set of announcements today has set the foundation of rapid recovery of the Indian economy," said goyal.
"I have no doubt in my mind that tall the stakeholders will work collectively to fulfil the vision of the Prime Minister, to expand the economy, to bring in more demand in the business cycle, to ensure that infrastructure projects get a boost, to see that the systems the country is running on are made more liberal and easy to operate and finally to leverage the huge demographic dividend and democracy that India offers," he added.
The five pillars on which PM Modi has set his agenda for a self-reliant India have received the first booster dose today, the minister said.
( With inputs from ANI )