Modi meets leading economists, sectoral experts

New Delhi:Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday met leading economists and sectoral experts, ahead of the budget for the year 2025-26, and sought their views on various issues involved in the country’s economy as part of the immediate budget exercise. The discussion mostly focused on how to strengthen key sectors including agriculture, MSMEs, and manufacturing and to create massive jobs in the country. Besides, the Prime Minister also extensively discussed a broader long-term growth vision on ‘how India could become a developed nation by 2047’, according to the top sources.

The close-door meeting comes amid several concerns around India’s decelerating economic growth, mostly due to poor consumption as well declining growth in manufacturing and export sectors. India’s economic growth slumped to a seven-quarter low of 5.4 per cent in the September quarter, while the Indian economy expanded 8.2 per cent in the financial year 2023-24.

Recently, Asian Development Bank cut India’s FY25 growth projection to 6.5 per cent from seven per cent, while Goldman Sachs scaled down its forecast to 6.4 per cent from 6.5 per cent.

According to the sources, the Prime Minister also sought several measures from the experts to support growth in the upcoming budget. “They include consumption and incentives or reforms to foster private investment among others. Besides, there were also in-depth discussions on how India can capitalise on the current geopolitical landscape to play a larger role in global value chains, and create more jobs across various sectors in the country,” the sources said.

Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman is scheduled to present the budget for 2025-26 in the Lok Sabha on February 1, 2025. Sitharaman has already concluded her pre-budget consultations with the key stakeholders, including economists, industry and trade unions. The industry is also hoping that the upcoming budget will introduce measures to support growth, boost consumption, and stimulate the investment cycle.

The meeting took place at Niti Aayog and was attended by the finance minister, top officials in the ministry and ministry for statistics and programme implementation, principal secretary to the Prime Minister P.K. Mishra, Niti Aayog vice chairman Suman Bery, and Niti Aayog CEO B.V.R. Subrahmanyam among others. Among the 15 economists and experts present were Ridham Desai from Morgan Stanley, agriculture economist Ashok Gulati, former IMF executive director Surjit Bhalla, and D.K. Joshi from Crisil.