9-10% GDP growth needed to remove unemployment: PM

With the Union Budget only a fortnight away, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today called for stepping up economic growth rate to 9-10 per cent to promote industrialisation and remove unemployment.

"The only way forward for this country is to register a growth rate of 9-10 per cent...For solving the unemployment problem, industrialisation is a must," he said after giving Prime Minister's trophy for best steel plants in the country.

The Prime Minister's remarks assume significance as they come ahead of the Budget for 2010-11 to be unveiled by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee on February 26.

Besides addressing the problem of inflation, the Budget is expected to lay down the roadmap for accelerating growth, which slipped from over 9 per cent to 6.7 per cent during 2008-09 owing to the impact of the global financial meltdown.

Driven by robust performance of the manufacturing sector, the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), which is a measure of economic activity, is projected to grow by 7.2 per cent during the current fiscal.

While giving away awards to RINL's Visakhapatnam Steel Plant and SAIL's Bhilai Steel Plant, Singh underlined the need for increasing steel output to meet the growing demand.

India's per annum per capita steel consumption, Singh said, was very low at 46 kg as against the global average of 190 kg.