Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Friday said that decreasing oil prices helped tame inflation. He also said that the government is taking steps for long-term financing in infrastructure projects.
Jaitley added that the government is undertaking some important steps to bring reforms on tax front.
“Need to look at our oil exploration programme, acquisition of assets overseas to cut dependence on energy imports,” Jaitley said.
Meanwhile, pitching for an energy sufficient India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday said the country should cut oil imports by 10 percent by 2022, while exhorting domestic firms to become global players and the well off to give up subsidised cooking gas connections.
Speaking at the first ‘Urja Sangam’ conference, he said plans are afoot to provide piped gas connection to 1 crore households in the next four years from 27 lakh presently.
Modi said if imports, which account for a staggering 77 percent of the demand, are cut by 10 percent by 2022, the country to look to halving it by 2030. India spent Rs 189,238 crore on import of crude oil in 2013-14.
The Finance Minister also said that the principal challenge before the govt has been to restore credibility of Indian economy.
Also, Arun Jaitley few days back promised to hike public spending on infrastructure, ease entry barriers for overseas investors and introduce GST Bill besides pitching for more interest rate cuts by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).
The government would also unveil more initiatives to promote ease of doing business while taking advantage of the ‘historic opportunity’ to push growth rate to double-digit level, he said.
“I have mentioned about allocation of resources, resolution of disputes in government contract, bankruptcy law so that the exit itself becomes easier.
