The Hindu Business Line : Govt aims to move economy forward thru inclusive growth

Bangalore, May 2 The UPA Government aimed to make India the fastest growing economy in the world through inclusive growth, according to the Union Finance Minister, Mr P. Chidambaram.

Addressing members of the Federation of Karnataka Chambers of Commerce here on Friday, Mr Chidambaram said, “Growth (GDP) has to be inclusive and bring in those people who are left out — farmers, scheduled, backward castes, and minorities.”

However, inclusive growth could be pursued only if the Government had enough revenues for meeting the investment requirements for including these classes, he said. Tax revenues of the Government, since 2004-05, doubled to Rs 5.88 lakh crore the last financial year.

“This is despite the customs/excise duty cuts and reduction in the income tax rates. Armed with these revenues, the Finance Minister made it clear that the funds would be used for meeting social sector expenditure.

“What also made the difference was the quality of expenditure for meeting the inclusive growth objective,” he said.

Current outlays

Accordingly outlays in education and health have increased manifold for the current year, over the corresponding figures in 2004-05. The outlay for education is estimated at Rs 35,400 crore and for health at Rs 16,534 crore.

For the last financial year, the education loans by banks were Rs 19,771 crore.

But he wanted banks to advance small ticket loans to village artisans falling in the category of “kushal karmikas”.

He admitted that there were infrastructure deficiencies.

To sustain the current pace of 8.8 per cent GDP growth, he said that the country would require “world class seaports, airports, roads and electricity”.

These, he said, would have to be made in order to meet the objective of becoming the fastest growing economy.

“Whether we like it or not, we are linked to the rest of the world,” he said.

Consequently developments in the world would have an impact on the country, he said, adding that only a strong country would be in a position to deal with adverse developments in the rest of the world.

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