With just days left for the Budget 2021, all eyes will be on Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, who has promised a budget like never before. However, to deliver on stimulus measures to push growth without blowing up the fiscal deficit will not be an easy task.
Industry body CII has recommended a three-pronged strategy centered around growth, fiscal consolidation and strengthening of the financial sector to revive the economy.
In an interview with Shereen Bhan, Kotak Mahindra Bank MD and CEO Uday Kotak, who is also the President of CII said that infrastructure, healthcare, education, sustainability and defence have to be the five big areas of focus in Budget 2021 for growth impulses to flow through.
He said, "Union Budget 2021 is not only about arithmetic, raising of revenues and investing money from a structural point of view into different segments of the economy, but it is about a policy vision in terms of the direction India takes in the post-COVID new world order."
"We really need to get a strategic focus on privatisation combined with a well-defined timetable and a passion to make it happen with proper execution and this I am talking broadly across the sectors. As far as talking in the context of public sector banks is concerned, there are two options - one is creating a bank holding company and second is look at one or two banks where they let it go into broader private hands," he said.
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