Govt will carry out a comprehensive restructuring of National Highway Programme: FM

New Delhi, July 05 (HS): For the highways sector, the Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has said that the Government will carry out a comprehensive restructuring of National Highway Programme to ensure that the National Highway Grid of desirable length and capacity is created using financeable model. After completing the Phase 1 of Bharatmala, states will be helped to develop State road networks in the second phase.

Talking about the Government’s vision for using rivers for cargo transportation, the Finance Minister said that the movement of cargo volume on Ganga is estimated to increase by nearly four times in the next four years. This will make movement of freight, passenger cheaper and reduce our import bill. In this regard she mentioned the Jal Marg Vikas Project for enhancing the navigational capacity of Ganga, and said that two multi-modal terminals at Sahibganj and Haldia and a navigational lock and Farrakka would be completed this year.

The Finance Minister has further said that in order to take connectivity infrastructure to the next level the Government will make available a blueprint this year for developing gas grids, water grids, i-ways, and regional airports. This is based on the successful, One Nation, One Grid model that has ensured power connectivity to states at affordable rates.

The Finance Minster further announced that the recommendations of the High Level Empowered Committee (HLEC) on retirement of old and inefficient plants, and addressing low utilisation of Gas plant capacity due to paucity of Natural Gas, will also be taken up for implementation now. Smt. Sitharaman also said that Government is examining the performance of Ujjwal DISCOM Assurance Yojana (UDAY) to improve it further.

She said the Government will work with the State Governments to remove barriers like cross subsidy surcharges, undesirable duties on open access sales or captive generation for Industrial and other bulk power consumers. Besides these structural reforms, considerable reforms are needed in tariff policy. A package of power sector tariff and structural reforms would soon be announced.

In the housing sector, the Finance Minister announced that several reforms measures would be taken up to promote rental housing and a Model Tenancy Law will soon be finalised and circulated to the states. She further said that public infrastructure and affordable housing will be taken up through innovative instruments such as joint development and concession on land parcels held by Central Public Sector Enterprises.

For the MSME sector, Rs. 350 crore has been allocated for FY 2019-20 under the Interest Subvention Scheme, for 2% interest subvention for all GST registered MSMEs, on fresh or incremental loans.

The Finance Minister further said that the Government will create a payment platform for MSMEs to enable filing of bills and payment. This will help eliminate delays in payment and give a boost to investment in MSMEs .

The Finance Minister announced that the Government of India has decided to extend the pension benefit to about three crore retail traders and small shopkeepers whose annual turnover is less than Rs.1.5 crore under a new Scheme Pradhan Mantri Karam Yogi Maandhan Scheme. Enrolment into the Scheme will be kept simple requiring only Aadhaar and a bank account and rest will be on self-declaration.