Industry demands package to revive economic growth

With GDP growth slowing to a nine year low of 6.5% in 2011-12, industry today demanded a revival package to put the country's economy back on higher growth path.

"A comprehensive 'Economic Revival Package' has to be announced at the earliest," CII Director General Chandrajit Banerjee said.

Demanding bold actions from the government and the RBI exclusively aimed at salvaging the economy, the chamber expressed hope the political leadership, across party lines, would converge and their actions would be "swift and
decisive".

Ficci said the current global situation remains fragile and there is an urgent need to take steps on the domestic front to guard against uncertainties.
Seeking "immediate corrective actions", Assocham President Rajkumar Dhoot said: "Investment environment should be improved and this may even call for some review of tax proposals and further relaxation of FDI norms".

He said fall in the growth numbers would have impact on employment generation. CII said repo rate and CRR cuts are called for from RBI as also measures from the Government to kick start the investment cycle, since growth in capital formation has been negative for the last few months.    

At 6.5%, the GDP growth in 2011-12 has been at a lower level than during the crisis period growth of 6.7%. Industry was of the view that the Centre and state governments have to work in tandem to ensure that major projects that are held up are put under implementation mode within one month.