New Delhi, Nov 1: Ficci President Sangita Reddy on Sunday said that India's strategy of dealing with the Covid crisis has paid off and the nation's economy is set to bounce back and emerge stronger.

"The speed, virality and impact of the Covid contagion is unprecedented. There was no standard playbook for pandemic management. The dilemma for governments across the world was creating a balance between protecting lives and livelihoods," a FICCI statement quoted Reddy as saying.

"India took the path of a strict lockdown to ramp up health infrastructure and focused on human lives. This strategy has paid off. Science evolved to give better cures, medical infrastructure was created, supplies like PPEs ramped up and our death rate has been contained," she said.

The industry body's President was of the view that it's time for bold actions on the livelihood front.

Noting that the recent monetary policy assures that the government and the regulator will do everything it takes to keep the economy afloat, Reddy said: "Let us start pushing our growth agenda vigorously.

She observed that the PMI for manufacturing and services has recovered to 56.8 and 49.8 respectively in September 2020. There has been a pick-up in e-way bill volumes, improvement in revenue earning freight traffic of major commodities, positive growth in exports and most significantly increase in the September GST collections to almost pre-Covid-19 level.

These incremental trends are heartening and need to be sustained, and further initiatives like the consumption vouchers must continue to remain focused on demand generation, she said.

The Ficci President was of the view that agriculture, advanced manufacturing and infrastructure sectors are among the major strengths of India.

"First is strength of our agriculture sector, which has performed well even in this difficult period. India can emerge as the food bowl for the world. By multiplying the farmer producer organisations and giving them adequate support, we can achieve good results both for farmers and consumers," she said.

If the collective energies and talents are well channelised, according the Reddy: "The next decade will be India's decade."

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Nov 01, 2020 03:16 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).