Employment, Skill Development & Agriculture focused at NITI Aayog session “Economic Policy – The Road Ahead”

New Delhi : Just two days before the 50-day demonetization deadline, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday met the economists at NITI Aayog on an interactive session “Economic Policy – The Road Ahead” and sought their views for the forthcoming Budget on areas such as job creation, agriculture, skill development and education. He also underlined the need for engaging the youth for speeding up economic development in the country and said that advancing the date of Budget presentation would help getting funds authorized for different sectors at the start of the financial year.

The mandate comes up at time when the Government wants some concrete suggestions to neutralize the adverse impact of demonetization since November 8 and push growth with special focus on employment generation and promote farm productivity as well. Prime Minister suggested to focus “Skill, Scale and Scope” in the policies to improve employment opportunities for the youth.

During the meeting with the Prime Minister, economists shared their views on various themes such as agriculture, job creation, taxation, education, digital technology, housing, tourism, banking, governance reform, data-driven policy and future steps for growth.

During the brainstorming discussions, sources, however, said the experts in farm sector suggested incentivizing States to undertake market reforms, create corpus fund for promoting farm mechanization and micro-irrigation, and provide interest subvention for term loans, among others, to double farm income by 2022.

Just after the meeting, Niti Aayog Vice-Chairman Arvind Panagariya briefed the media, saying that the Prime Minister called for growth in three important sectors – agriculture, job creation for youth and skill development.

In his intervention, the Prime Minister also thanked various participants for their suggestions and observations. In particular, he called for innovative approaches in areas such as skill development and tourism as well.

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