In an interview to Santosh Tiwari and Vrishti Beniwal, he indicates consensus would be the key for allowing foreign direct investment in the retail sector. Edited excerpts:
Infrastructure funding has been a focus area in the Budget. Creation of an infrastructure debt fund is one step. What would be the working model?
The regulation part of the fund is currently being worked out. Whether it will be joint regulation or will be regulated by Sebi (Securities and Exchange Board of India) would be finalised in due course.
The attempt is to make sure there is less tweaking of existing regulation to create this kind of debt fund. It would require one more round of consultations with RBI.
We are also assessing the process side of it. We want to complete the whole process by the end of the first quarter (June).
What is the finance ministry's view on giving new bank licences to industrial houses? How do you plan to avoid a conflict of interest?
RBI had floated a discussion paper last year and the work on draft guidelines for a wider consultation is on.
The views expressed from various quarters on draft guidelines will be taken into account. We don't want the government to take a view bypassing all the comments.
There was an expectation that 51 per cent FDI in the retail sector would be announced in the Budget. However, the finance minister only hinted at the possibility of FDI policy changes during the course of the year. What would be the future course of action?
A broad consensus on that has to be completed. People have different views on the matter.
We all realise the importance of giving a good feeling for increasing FDI into the country and that would depend on the way we work towards creating a friendly environment for FDI. Organised retail getting into farm-to-fork will benefit the whole supply chain.
Farmers would get better returns and leakages would go down. Net revenue would certainly go up with the kind of discipline
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