As part of the Project Management Cell (PMC), the government has started a consultation drive to meet top corporate houses and discuss the issues of their concern in the expansion of the business. The initiative has been taken by union commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal. In the first phase of the drive, the major companies like Maruti Suzuki and Hindustan Unilever were consulted to discuss the problems facing by them in the expansion of the operation. The points raised by companies are being shared with other ministries to resolve the issues.
Now, the government has approached country’s top 25 corporate houses and lenders which include Tatas, Reliance, Birla, Mahindra, Adanis, Infosys and Wipro, to discuss their investment plan and resolving their issues of concern to expand the operations.
Union Minister Piyush Goyal is expected to meet Vedanta Group’s Anil Agarwal, Bharti Group’s Sunil Mittal, JSW’s Sajjan Jindal, Sun Pharma’s Dilip Sanghvi, HDFC chairman Deepak Parekh, ICICI Bank’s Sandeep Bakshi, banker Uday Kotak, Bajaj group representatives, the Shapoorji Pallonji Group and L&T’s S N Subrahmanyan.
Among other measures taken by the government to prevent a sharp slowdown in the economy, this consultation drive to meet to corporate houses is expected to spur the investment in the market in a bid of expanding the business. Though the consultation drive commenced a few weeks back, the outcome has come at a time when the government is trying to boost economic activity.
Maruti Suzuki pointed out issues related to the financing of vehicles in the market, Hindustan Unilever termed the misuse of intellectual property rights and different regulatory agency with different approach across the state for creating problems in expansion of operation in the meeting.
The capacity constraints, a major reason for blocking the investment in the business, along with other factors including the delay in clearance which have stopped the investments even announced earlier were discussed in detail in the consultation meeting.
The government expects that the measure to lower the corporation tax will encourage many companies to invest in the market. In a recent decision, new manufacturing entities have been permitted to pay just 15% tax in case they begin operations in a little over three years from now.
“We are trying to ascertain the issues that are being faced at various levels which could be anything related to the regulatory environment, licences, or simple funding-related aspects and trying to connect them with the authorities,” said an official.