India’s growth encouraging, inflation major worry: Survey
New Delhi, Feb 25 – Projecting India’s growth at over 8.25 percent next fiscal and at double-digit rates by 2015, the country’s Economic Survey conveyed its concern over rising prices and called for urgent steps to lower the government’s fiscal deficit.
‘It is entirely possible for India to move into the rarefied domain of double-digit growth and even don the mantle of the fastest-growing economy in the world within the next four years,’ said the survey.
‘As of now the outlook for inflation is conditioned by supply-side pressures in the near term,’ said the survey tabled by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee in the Lok Sabha, the lower house of parliament, a day ahead of the federal budget.
In a veiled criticism of the manner in which the government has sought to tackle rising prices, the survey also said that in some essential items inflationary expectations may have fanned the price rise as there were ample stocks.
‘Making available adequate and timely quantities of these items and at different locations to overcome supply side mismatches is the real challenge,’ the survey noted.
The annual report card on the state of the Indian economy also said the current rebound called for a gradual withdrawal of the $37-billion stimuli since December 2008 to help the country weather the ills of global slowdown.
At the same time, it said, the export sector needed a further push.
