By TIOL News Service

NEW DELHI, MAR 22, 2017: THE Union Minister of Finance, Mr Arun Jaitley, today said that the Government would focus on two important areas including building infrastructure on war footing and substantial expenditure on development of rural India. The Finance Minister said that India is having the largest infrastructure creating programme in the world which include constructing 10,000 kms of road every year or 30 km a day, connecting every village with a regular road by 2019, to ensure that every village is electrified by 2018 and addition of 40-50 Regional Airports besides modernizing the Railway System among others.

Mr Jaitley was addressing the 23rd Conference of Auditors' General of Commonwealth Countries and British Overseas Territories in Delhi today. The Conference which is organized every three years, is being hosted in India for the First time. The Conference is held in Delhi from March 21-23, 2017 and is attended by 74 delegates from 36 participating countries.

The Finance Minister highlighted the various schemes and programmes launched by the present Government for the development of rural areas, including construction of roads, electrification of villages, cleanliness campaign by providing every rural household with a toilet system, implementing scheme ‘Housing for all' in rural areas by 2022 and high expenditure on rural irrigation, animal husbandry and dairy farming among others.

Mr Jaitley said that the major challenges before the Government is uncertainty in international oil prices, slow pace of growth in the global economy, addressing the issue of increased private sector investment and tackling the problem of Non Performing Assets (NPAs) among others. The Finance Minister said that India will continue to be the fastest growing economy in the world and will continue to achieve the annual growth rate of 7-8 per cent and can further increase this growth rate provided the global economy also registers higher recovery.