Fuel price rise won't worsen inflation, hints Pranab

A day after an Opposition-sponsored nationwide strike in protest against fuel price rise and inflation, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee today did not seem to be too worried about the current situation.

“The revision of fuel prices will add only less than a per cent to the wholesale price index (WPI)”, he told reporters here.

The finance minister visited Chandigarh to chair the meeting of chief ministers of northern states including Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab, Haryana, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh.

In a brief interaction with the media, Mukherjee refrained from answering other questions pertaining to inflation, and instead chose to speak on the financial sector.

He said there was a need to create an interface between the state chief ministers and the CMDs of public sector banks so that various schemes for the underprivileged are implemented in letter and spirit.

While the chief ministers of Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand participated in the meet, Punjab, Jammu and Kashmir and Uttar Pradesh were represented by other ministers.

Mukherjee added that instead of focusing on the brick-and-mortar expansion of banking services, the central government envisages to expand the services in the hinterland through technology.

He also asked banks to tap the vast opportunity provided by the semi-urban and rural markets by converting savings in these areas into financial assets.