Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman interacts with the directors at the department of financial services ( DFS), in her reach out attempt planned through a series of meetings with officers in the ministry of finance and corporate affairs.
While a finance minister’s meetings with secretaries, additional secretaries and joint secretaries are pretty much common, the practice of meeting junior officers, who are lower in rank than joint secretaries but are instrumental in policy-making is relatively rare.
This series of interactive meetings come at a critical juncture when the economy is reeling under the damaging impact of a pandemic of epic proportions, with several anlaysts predicting an up to 7% contraction in real GDP in FY21, although the trade pundits divided over the possibility of a sharp recovery in FY22.
The meeting with directors and deputy secretaries, who often play a key role in the drafting of various policy initiatives, signals Sitharaman’s renewed focus on the relatively lower-rung of policy-making apparatus to improve governance. Minister of state for finance and corporate affairs Anurag Thakur was also present at the meetings.
