'Two power centres' debate useless: PM

Singh neither 'rules himself in nor out' for third term

The debate over ‘two power centres’ —Congress President Sonia Gandhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh — is a “useless” one, said Singh.

“This is the creation of the media. It is a useless debate,” he told reporters at Rashtrapati Bhavan after the presentation of the Padma Awards.

The issue has become a topic of discussion after senior Congress leader Digvijaya Singh recently said the two power centres system has not worked well and should not be repeated.

The Congress officially rejected this contention and said it was an “ideal model” for future as well.

However, most Congress leaders preferred to avoid commenting on the subject till they knew the direction in which the debate was going.

The current term of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government will end in May 2014. Asked whether he was ruling himself out, Singh was non-committal. “I am not ruling it in, I am not ruling it out.”

‘Growth be sustainable'
Economic growth should be based on optimal use of natural resources and development must be environmentally sustainable, said Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, while inaugurating an international workshop on Green National Accounting for India.

“Economic policies designed to promote growth have been implemented without considering their full environmental consequences, presumably on the assumption that these consequences would either take care of themselves or could be dealt with separately,” said Singh.

He said India’s commitment to planned economic development reflects the government's determination to improve the economic conditions of people and an affirmation of the role of the government in bringing about this outcome through a variety of social, economic, and institutional initiatives.

"But as the economy develops the capacity to grow rapidly, it gives rise to many new challenges. For instance, natural resources are limited, and final.

"And one needs to decide how to use these scarce resources optimally, both from the economic development and the sustainability perspectives," Singh said.

The Prime Minister said there is evidence to suggest that such policies may actually result in a net decrease in human well-being.     Globally, he said, environmental degradation is manifesting itself through the loss of fertile soils, desertification, decreasing forest cover, reduction of fresh water availability, and an extreme loss of bio-diversity.     "These are serious consequences, and it has become clear today that economic development must be environmentally sustainable," he added.