Even while India has been struck with a host of crises ranging from Covid-19 outbreak, to cyclones, earthquake, fire and locust attacks, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Thursday that it was time for bold decisions and bold investments.

He urged industrialists to shun a conservative approach and adopt a plug-and-play model instead of a command-and-control one.

Speaking at the 95th Plenary session of the Indian Chamber of Commerce, Modi said, “This is not the time for command and control but plug and play; this is not the time to be conservative but time for bold decisions and approach”.

This is the second occasion on which the Prime Minister has reached out to industrialists this month and comes at a time when global ratings agency Standard & Poor's (S&P) has affirmed its rating on India's long-term foreign and local currency sovereign credit at the lowest investment grade with a stable outlook. It said that the country's economy remains “a long-term outperformer versus peers at a similar level of income”.

The rating agency projected the economy to contract by five per cent in the current financial year, but said it would grow by 8.5 per cent in 2021-22.

Modi stressed that the global Covid-19 situation, which is also haunting India, needs to be turned into an opportunity and the country needs to become self-reliant and opt for aggressive judicious import substitution. He also stressed on single-use plastic use especially in West Bengal terming that it will benefit the state develop its jute industry.

“We need to make it a turning point and form a self-reliant India. The country needs to stand on its own feet and we need to reduce dependence on imports. Eventually, we need to be on the lookout for exporting the items we have been able to import substitute”, he said.

S&P, however, said the impact of the Covid-19 outbreak posed a significant challenge to the country’s economic growth trajectory. It said the economic growth and the fiscal situation of the Centre and states would improve by next year, and hoped the reforms initiated by the government would bear fruit in the long run.

Despite the country’s economic growth crashing to a 69-quarter low of 3.1 per cent in January-March 2019-20, Modi has asserted that India would return to high growth and assured of further reforms if the need be in consultation with the industry.

He stressed that the aspiration for self-reliance in manufacturing of medical equipment, defence, minerals, edible oils, fertilisers, electronics including chip manufacturing, solar panels, batteries and aviation has always been there and asked industrialists to jump the bandwagon to seize opportunities in developing sectors in the country.

“We have now made the coal and minerals sector competitive and industrialists now need to come forward”, he said.

Last month, as part of the Rs. 20 trillion financial package, finance minister, Nirmala Sitharaman ended the government’s monopoly in the coal sector by allowing commercial mining on a revenue-sharing basis. The move, according to the Centre, would introduce competition and transparency in an opaque sector haunted by legacy. In February 2018, the Centre had already approved auction for coal mines in the country for commercial mining.