Every village should be connected with a road: FM
India’s Minister of finance, Arun Jaitley on Monday discussed about the Indian economy at a function hosted by the Asia Society in New York.
Speaking on the topic, on "Made in India: The New Deal, he commented on the global economy situation and said, " “it is grim and worrisome and what will be the state of play a year or two years from now, I don't think anybody has been able for sure to hazard even a significant guess.”
Jaitley also shared the Indian government’s strategy pertaining to road and highways before senior officials of the US Govt.
“Almost 233 highways are under construction and that will only indicate the magnitude of the economic activity, we already reached about 20-21 km a day and the target is to reach about a 30 km of national highways per day. And we are spending three times than what we spent earlier and the target is to be reached by 2019,” Jaitley said.
“Every village should be connected with the regular road, that’s the target which is well on track,” he added.
On the ‘Make in India’ initiative, launched in 2014 by India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Jaitley remarked in the interactive session, “India needs to develop significantly in terms of manufacturing because the share of GDP of manufacturing has over the year shrunk to about 15%.”
“Our services sector is fairly robust- we grow annually at about 9-10% and it is expanding rapidly. This is not a sector that seriously worries us,” he said in his statement.
“Agriculture is the most worrisome sector in the Indian economy, with about 15-16% contribution in our GDP, you have 55% population in agriculture and that’s where really the stress in the Indian economy is,” he highlighted.
Various senior officials of the Indian government, that included the Indian ambassador to the U.S. Arun Kumar Singh, Shaktikanta Das, Secretary of the Department of Economic Affairs in the Indian Ministry of Finance, and CII President Naushad Forbes participated in the business meeting.
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