New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi along with a team of ministers and secretaries on Wednesday brainstormed with some of the country's top economists and sectoral experts to get inputs both for the budget and future steps to revive the economy.

The experts recommended making the GST more transparent and simple, relaxing the Mandi Act, spending more in the agriculture and the rural sectors, further rounds of disinvestment, taxing long-term capital gains and sticking to fiscal deficit targets.

Among the economists and experts to attend the meeting were M. Govinda Rao, a former member of the Prime Minister's economic advisory council, Ravindra Dholakia from IIM Ahmedabad, Crisil chief economist D.K. Joshi, big data expert from IIM Bangalore Pulak Ghosh and infrastructure expert Vinayak Chatterjee.

The meeting decided to reconvene after two months to take stock of the developments.

Before meeting the Prime Minister, six groups, comprising the experts, met separately for two hours to brainstorm on subjects such as the economy, agriculture, infrastructure, health and education, employment, exports and manufacturing.

"We said that long-term capital gains tax should be imposed as otherwise it was skewing consumer choice against debt. We want policies to be neutral in its treatment of the two investment avenues - equity and debt," Govinda Rao said.

Rao, however, made it clear that the suggestion was not binding on the government.

"Experts discussed the bad loan crisis, recapitalisation of banks, power sector reforms by way of privatising distribution firms, deepening of bond markets," said a secretary who attended the meeting.

Niti Aayog vice-chairman Rajiv Kumar said employment was one of the key subjects discussed at the meeting.

"Niti Aayog had set up a task force to examine what we call high frequency employment data. The task force has come out with numbers which are in contrast with the Labour Bureau numbers. You will see there is much better news on the employment front than what people thought," he said.

Another major issue that was discussed at the meeting was whether India can adopt a stronger export-driven growth strategy, Kumar said.#