The government expects that the Covid wave brought on by the spread of the Omicron variant of coronavirus will not have a negative impact on economic growth of more than 5-10 basis points, Anurag Jain Secretary, Department of Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) said on Thursday. “We are reasonably confident that in the most probable case, a small blip which may give a 5-10 basis point difference in growth but otherwise we do not expect a lot of problems due to Omicron on the economic front,” he said. The DPIIT also announced it has restarted monitoring delivery of essential commodities as states have started imposing restrictions on movement of people and goods to limt the spread of Covid. Jain also noted that DPIIT was set to come out with a revision in foreign direct investment (FDI) policy to facilitate the disinvestment of Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC). “The way our policy reads as of now, there will be problems in completing the disinvestment process for prospective investors,” he said, noting that the DPIIT was in the process of drafting required changes in FDI policy. —ENS
