The Hindu Business Line : GDP growth

GDP growth has slid to 9.1 per cent in the first half of the current financial year as compared to 9.9 per cent in the corresponding period the previous year.

The slowdown is a pointer to the structural inadequacies as well as uneven development of critical infrastructure, such as roads, ports, airports, power, education and health facilities across States. This has resulted in skewed growth.

The lesser developed States such as Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Orissa and UP need to get preferential treatment even though governments of some of these States may not be pro-actively functioning right now.

The lesser developed States can give bigger push to GDP growth as their potential is under-tapped at present. The urge to boost growth beyond 9 per cent can come only if these States receive massive dose of resources with tight monitoring from the Centre.

Moreover, the dream of 10 per cent GDP growth can be realised by rejuvenating the farm sector by focussed attention on spread of education, health/nutrition, linkages and reallocation of scarce resources to rural sector on sustainable basis.

Ashok Kumar Agrawal Ghatsila (Jharkhand)