"Immediately after assuming charge, Mukherjee had a series of meetings with all the senior officials of the ministry and reviewed the status of various programmes and issues relating to all the departments of the ministry. Issues relating to the forthcoming Budget were also discussed at the meetings," an official release said.
At the meetings, attended by Finance Secretary Ashok Chawla, Revenue Secretary P V Bhide, Expenditure Secretary Sushma Nath, Chief Economic Advisor Arvind Virmani,
Disinvestment Secretary Rahul Khullar and the CBDT and CBEC Chairmen, Mukherjee highlighted the need to bring the economy back on growth track, sources said.
He added that there are obviously fiscal concerns, which might limit the options before the government to come out with another stimulus package for the industry, facing slackening demand, sources said.
Presenting the budget for the year 2009-10, would be the first task before Mukherjee, who was also made Finance Minister late last year, after P Chidambaram moved to Home Ministry.
