PM defends govt on price rise

Defending his government on the issue of price rise, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today assured of all practical steps to curb inflation. At the same time, he also reminded that if tough measures had been taken to reduce prices, it would have resulted in massive unemployment and reduced industrial growth.

“We could have dealt with the price effect by a very tough monetary and fiscal policy which could have depressed the demand. Would that be the course the House recommend to me? If we had gone that route there would have been large scale unemployment and steep fall in industrial production in our country,” the PM said in the Lok Sabha, replying to the debate on the President’s speech.

Pitching for a high growth rate, Singh said 7.5 per cent growth was possible during the current fiscal and he was confident of achieving 8 per cent rate next year.

“The year there after, we will be able to turn the economy to over 9 per cent growth,” he said. Singh also explained that he was emphasising on a high growth rate as it could provide relief to those who were suffering.

“Growth is a means to find resources to spend on education, on health, on rural development, on social security. And if we do not grow fast enough, we may talk about removal of poverty, we may talk about expanding irrigation and other facilities in rural areas, it will all remain pipedreams,” he added.

“The fact that the first three years of our government saw a sharp increase in the growth rate enabled us to devote a lot of resources in rural development, in agricultural development and education. It is , therefore, very important that the economy should get back to the growth rate of 9 per cent or more,” the PM said.

Singh also sounded confident that if the economy and social and physical infrastructure remained well-managed and corruption was reduced, India could sustain a double digit growth.

Asking not to create panic over the food situation, the PM said,“comfortable level” of food stocks are available with the Centre while the Rabi crop prospects “are also very encouraging”. At the same time, the PM reminded that “enforcement in terms of imposing stock and time limits is in the hands of the state governments. We have empowered the state governments to do so through the Essential Commodities Act and I have requested the chief ministers to take stern action against hoarders.”

Defending Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar over the issue of sugar prices, the PM denounced the Opposition’s criticisms saying, “the amount of sugar that India has exported relative to imports, is so small that it is surprising that so much is being made out of this.” He also referred to the increase of sugar prices as a “cyclical nature of the production of sugar cane”.