Infra investment to push growth to 8% in 3 years: Montek

Says return to high growth is possible because our economic fundamentals are strong

Attributing declining growth to global and domestic factors, Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia today said efforts to revive infrastructure investment would help in reverting to 8% growth in next three years.

"We are working to revive the pace of investment in infrastructure, which we believe can provide the basis for a return of growth back to eight percent over a three year period. Our economic fundamentals are strong and we believe that a return to high growth is possible," Ahluwalia said while addressing the Strategic Economic Dialogue (SED) forum.

In the October-December quarter, India's economy grew below expectations at 4.7% on falling output in the manufacturing sector.

Growth in the first nine months (April-December) was 4.6%.

The economy must expand by 5.7% in January- March quarter to achieve the estimated GDP expansion of 4.9% in 2013-14.

"GDP growth in India has slowed down to around 5% over the past two years, partly because of the global downturn but also because of the certain domestic constraints, which we have been addressing," he said.

Ahluwalia congratulated China for achieving 7.7% growth, which was above than the targeted 7.5%.

"Whatever be the outcome of the general election (in India), I am confident that the objective of strengthening bilateral economic relations with China will not be altered ...," he said.