By IANS,
New Delhi: The government is considering a special package for the crisis-hit engineering sector, Minister of State for Commerce and Industry Jyotiraditya M. Scindia said here Tuesday.
“We will relook into the labour-intensive sectors, whether it’s engineering, apparels, handicrafts or gems and jewellery,” Scindia told reporters on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum’s India Economic Summit.
He said there were “some rays of sunshine” in areas like gems and jewellery, but added: “Sectors like engineering require robust support, and we will provide that.”
The statement comes after Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee Sunday told reporters in London there would be no further special packages to stimulate the Indian economy, and cited the urgent need to cut India’s fiscal and revenue deficits.
However, he had also said the timing of its exit from the stimulus strategy will be of India’s choosing — to be determined on considerations of world economic output and growth rate — rather than any globally synchronised “date-specific” criteria.
In Delhi the same day, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said his government may “wind down” by next year the fiscal stimulus that was launched last December.
“I am happy to say that India has been able to face the global economic downturn better than most other countries in the world,” the prime Minister told the India Economic Summit.
India’s engineering exports, which grew by 18 percent last year touching $40 billion, fell 22 percent in the first half this fiscal.
The Engineering Export Promotion Council (EEPC) had last week urged the central government to help the engineering sector overcome the present crisis.
India’s engineering exports account for barely 0.6 per cent of world engineering exports.