Government would formulate policy packages to move on to a higher annual growth of nine percent, Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha said on Monday. “It is our responsibility to frame policy packages to achieve it (nine per cent growth),” Sinha told reporters on the sidelines of a pre-budget meeting in New Delhi. “High growth rate would be targeted over the medium term to achieve on an average nine per cent growth in the first decade of the new century,” he said.
Sinha has already announced that the union budget will put in place a medium term strategy to spur growth by having a policy framework to encourage demand and investment, particularly in the infrastructure sector.
The Finance Minister also said that the 6.8 per cent growth in 1998-99 and 6.4 per cent in 1999-2000 achieved by the Vajpayee government was considered creditable considering innumerable problems faced by the government on the fiscal front including eleventh finance commission's recommendations on devolution of central pool of taxes and the implementation of fifth pay commission.
“This year, despite economic slowdown, particularly in the manufacturing sector and the oil shock, the government would end up with around 6.5 per cent growth, just 0.5 per cent short of the projected level,” the minister said. Bureau Report