India Inc seeks sops, protection from imports.

NEW DELHI: While blaming the government's misplaced policy focus for the sharp slowdown, India Inc on Friday used the low GDP growth as an opportunity to make a case for more sops and protection from imports.

If Godrej group chairman Adi Godrej, who is also the CII president, used two meetings with commerce and industry minister Anand Sharma to suggest that the government should "err on the side of giving higher incentives" and offer cheaper credit to boost exports, ITC chief YC Deveshwar articulated the demand for nearly trebling the import duty on agarbatti on the grounds that the key offering to Hindu gods was manufactured by the small scale industry. There was also a mention of chillies and tobacco, during Deveshwar's pitch for sustainable livelihood at a meeting of Board of Trade, which consists of the country's top industrialists and bureaucrats. There were suggestions from industry to get RBI to cut interest rates with some going to the extent of recommending a two percentage point reduction in policy rates.

In the afternoon, at the meeting of the government-industry joint task force, Godrej is said to have started the meeting on a sterner note. "The political conditions correspond to 2008," he is learnt to have said before adding that the response to the global financial crisis was strong but it was now paralysed. Singania joined the criticism, focusing on the difference in position taken by RBI and the government. Then, Hari Bhartia of Jubilant Bhartia launched an offensive suggesting how the government did not seem to have its focus right.

He pointed to suggestions that the import duty on diesel cars be hiked at a time when political compulsions were making it tough for UPA to raise the price of the auto fuel.

Earlier, JK Paper MD Harshpati Singhania, who appeared worried over rising cost for the Indian industry, also suggested that protection from cheap imports, some of which is due to free trade agreements, was needed.

Sharma and his officers were surprised that there were few who directly blamed the government for the slump in growth. In fact, the minister began on a tentative note suggesting that the GDP growth of 5.3% in January-march 2012 was a "shocker" and acknowledged that it was not entirely due to global factors.

Source : timesofindia.indiatimes.com