India Economic Summit: Many more structural reforms in offing to propel growth, says NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant

New Delhi: There will be many more structural reforms by the government in the coming days to push economy to a high growth trajectory, NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant said on Thursday. In the last five years, the economy has grown at about 7.5 percent. The country’s growth rate of 8.1 percent in the last quarter of 2017-18 has fallen to 5 percent in April-June, 2019-20, Kant said at a World Economic Forum event here. [caption id=“attachment_4849971” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] A file photo of NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant. PTI[/caption] “The RBI and the government have taken a series of measures to take India back to a high trajectory of growth. The RBI has dropped repo rate by about 110 basis points (in 2019 so far) but there are limitations to monetary policy and therefore the government stepped in and took a series of measures,” Kant said. The government announced a series of economic boosters including capitalisation of public sector banks, merging some of them, package for exports, and bringing down corporate tax rate, he said. “I think many more structural reforms are in the offing. The government has pushed for public sector disinvestment. I can tell you we have pushed for asset monetisation in a very big way. Our belief is that instead of green-field projects, investors must come into brown-field projects,” he said further. Kant also said the government must be a facilitator, a catalyst and should keep itself out of business.