Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi has said that high food prices, emanating from rising inflation has stretched households budgets and constrained industrial growth and the challenge before the government is to crackdown on hoarders to provide relief to masses and industry.
He was addressing on the occasion of 86th Annual General Meeting of Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) here. Gandhi said, ‘’ beating inflation is our top priority as we must crack down on hoarding and profiteering. We must also ease infrastructure bottlenecks and rapidly modernize the supply chain from field to plate.”
Unfolding his economic agenda for achieving higher growth to match aspirations of modern India, Mr. Gandhi , ‘’ corruption is bleeding our people dry. It is an unacceptable burden on the people of our nation. We must fight corruption with all our strength and determination’’. A step in this direction initiated during 2nd UPA regime was to ensure that convicted criminals are kept out of Parliament, he pointed out.
The INC , he said, has appealed for the passage of six critical anti corruption bills through parliament, prominent among those comprise Amendment to the Prevention of Corruption Act and the Grievance Redressal Bill to protect honest officers and be much more effective against those who are corrupt and ensure that every citizen has the right to timely delivery of goods and services.
The UPA government, he said, has done more than any other government to combat corruption as it gave to the people of India the Right to Information Act, creating a new paradigm which has brought transparency in the administration.
In a bid to obtain all clearances before auctioning projects to private players , the UPA government was considering a natural resource investment SPV which would translate into a powerful idea, said Mr Gandhi.
He told captains of trade and industry that the setting up of the Cabinet Committee on Investments and the Project Monitoring Group are a recognition of the need to fast track clearances. Some 300 projects with an investment of over Rs. 5 lakh crore which worked out 5 per cent of India’s GDP have been cleared, he said, adding that sectors affected by delays in clearances such as power, petroleum and mining have been the biggest beneficiary of this focused approach though many projects are still stuck up for good and bad reasons.
Gandhi underlined the need to open up manufacturing to foster competition and one of the steps in this direction is the setting up of industrial corridors such as Delhi-Mumbai, Mumbai- Bengaluru , Benguluru – Chennai and Ludhiana –Kolkota which can revolutionize high value added manufacturing and provide millions of jobs..
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