NEW DELHI: Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday said the trust between government and industry is critical for leveraging opportunities thrown up by the coronavirus pandemic.

While addressing the members of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) at a closed-door event in Chennai, the finance minister said the ongoing dialogue with industry has enabled the government to take a series of actions as the pandemic situation evolved.

Elaborating on the government’s strategy for handling the pandemic, Sitharaman said that on one hand the focus is on ramping up vaccination as that was the big protection against the pandemic. "On the other hand, government is working on ramping up health infrastructure, including in the tier 2 and tier 3 cities, by supporting the private sector," she added.

"Finance minister reiterated that the announced disinvestment plan was on track. She further shared that the Development Finance Institution announced in the budget would be operational soon. She also expressed satisfaction that liquidity is no longer a major concern, and that the Bank-NBFC-MFI channel has been de-clogged and from 15th October there would be a special drive to reach out credit to those who need it," CII said in a statement.

CII president TV Narendran applauded government’s initiatives towards preparedness for the third wave and interventions aimed at catalysing private investments, such as the Production Linked Incentive schemes and the National Monetisation Pipeline. 

“He urged the government to continue frontloading its committed capital expenditure to support the demand recovery and for the virtuous cycle of private investments to set in," CII said in the statement.