PM Modi meets business leaders; Ambani, Tata, Adani, Mittal, Mahindra, attend event

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday interacted with India's top business stalwarts and discussed how to improve economic growth and create new job opportunities. The meeting was attended by top businessmen like Ratan Tata (Tata Sons), Mukesh Ambani (Reliance Industries), Anand Mahindra (Mahindra & Mahindra), Gautam Adani (Adani Industries), Sunil Mittal (Bharti Airtel), Anil Agarwal (Vedanta), N Chandrasekaran (Tata Sons), AM Naik (L&T), Sajjan Jindal (JSW Group), Baba Kalyani (Kalyani Group) and Venu Srinivasan (TVS Group).

The discussions assume significance as the government is looking at solutions for reviving the economy, which has witnessed a downturn in recent quarters, falling over six year low to 4.5 per cent in July-September quarter. Even the government has announced slew of measures to revive domestic consumption and attract more foreign investment.

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Meanwhile, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has already started her pre-Budget consultations with various stakeholder from across the sectors ahead of her Budget speech on February 1.

Once the pre-Budget meetings are over, a final decision on the tax proposals would be taken by the FM after which the proposals would be discussed with PM Modi.

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Earlier on December 31, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced that Rs 102 lakh crore worth of infrastructure projects have been identified for the next five years as part of the government's spending push in the sector. The minister said that projects worth Rs 3 lakh crore are likely to be added in this pipeline by the states, taking the total to Rs 105 lakh crore.

By Chitranjan Kumar