Nirmala Sitharaman To Announce Bonanza For Realty Sector To Fight Slowdown Blues

In yet another bid to fight the ongoing economic slowdown, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is set to announce mega plans for a sectoral growth on Friday. She is scheduled to address media shortly. News Nation has learnt that the bonanza will cater to the needs to real estate sector. This is third such announcement by Sitharaman in less than 100 days. All four secretaries of the finance ministry along with junior minister Anurag Thakur will be present at the press conference. Earlier, she faced flak over her ‘Ola, Uber’ remark over auto slump. She had said that the present day generation goes for such cab services instead of buying their own vehicles. This kind of behaviour is affecting the car sales in the country, she had said.

Last month, the Finance Minister had announced major steps to revive economic growth amid growing concern over economic slowdown.  In a much-anticipated press conference, Nirmala Sitharaman announced several measures including a rollback of enhanced surcharge on foreign portfolio investors levied in the Budget. She also announced that Angel tax on start-ups has been lifted.

She also announced that the banks will now transfer the benefits of repo rate cuts by the RBI to the borrowers. This move is expected to bring the home and auto loan rates and EMIs down.

Recently, the International Monetary Fund had said that India's economic growth is "much weaker" than expected. It attributed the reasons for corporate and environmental regulatory uncertainty and lingering weaknesses in some non-bank financial companies.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) in July projected a slower growth rate for India in 2019 and 2020, a downward revision of 0.3 per cent for both the years, saying its GDP will now grow respectively at the rate of 7 and 7.2 per cent reflecting a weaker-than-expected outlook for domestic demand.

The observation comes as the Opposition continues to attack the Modi government over the current situation. Recently, former prime minister Manmohan Singh had said that the Narendra Modi government’s "monumental blunders" like demonetisation and faulty Goods and Services Tax (GST) are the reasons behind the country’s ongoing economic crisis.

HIGHLIGHTS

• This is third such announcement by Sitharaman in less than 100 days.
• All secretaries along with junior minister Thakur will also be present.
• She faced flak over her ‘Ola, Uber’ remark over slump in auto sector.