Following are the economy-related highlights of President Pratibha Patil's address to the joint session of parliament Thursday where she outlined the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government's broad agenda for the next five years:
- Immediate priority to counter effects of global slowdown
- Focus on small units, exports, textiles, automobile, infrastructure, housing
- Divestment of stake in state-run units but no privatisation
- Encourage foreign investment with appropriate policy changes
- Reforms in insurance, pension and banking
- Reorient subsidies so that they benefit only the needy
- Ensure prudent fiscal management
- Move towards common goods and services tax regime
- Encourage pubic-private partnerships in infrastructure
- Expand rural telephone network to achieve 40 percent tele-density
- New targets for rural electrification, irrigation and roads
- Integrated energy policy for adding 13,000 MW every year
- Aggressive hydrocarbons exploration with renewed hunt for oil assets abroad
- Make civilian nuclear energy deal operational
- Massive skill development initiative to realise demographic dividend
- Legislative amendments to protect unfair displacement from farmland
- Brain gain policy to attract global talent to 14 "innovation universities"
- Measures to get back illegal money stashed overseas
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