PM's announcements will enhance economic activities: Arun Jaitley

Arun Jaitley said that PM's announcements will enable a cleaner and bigger GDP.

New Delhi, Dec 31: The slew of measures announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi will enhance economic activities and pave way for "cleaner and bigger GDP", Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said on Saturday.

In a series of tweets, Jaitley said: "PM's announcements will enable a cleaner & bigger GDP...PM's announcements will enhance economic activities". Referring to the sops announced for different sectors, he said agriculture, MSME and housing segments will get a fillip.

The Finance Minister, who will be presenting the budget for 2017-18 in February, also said the government is committed to cleansing political funding. On the announcement of fixed 8 per cent interest rate on 10-year deposits up to Rs 7.5 lakh for senior citizens, Jaitley said it is "great news".

In his address to the nation, Modi said home loans in urban areas up to Rs 9 lakh and Rs 12 lakh will receive interest subvention of 4 per cent and 3 per cent, respectively. Also, in rural areas home loans up to Rs 2 lakh will get interest rebate of 3 per cent.

Modi also said government will bear 60-days interest burden on farm loans taken for rabi crops and also doubled Nabard funding corpus to Rs 41,000 crore. All 3 crore Kisan Credit Cards holders will be given RuPay debit cards, he added.

PTI