Prime Minister Manmohan Singh may use the last meeting of the Planning Commission, slated for April 30, to respond to the Opposition’s allegations on the state of the economy during the 10 years of the UPA regime.

The Opposition has alleged that growth has suffered heavily during the 10 years.

“The Prime Minister, while chairing the meeting, may use this last opportunity to vehemently deny this allegation,” a senior Government official told Business Line . The meeting will be attended by full-time members of the Commission, besides the Minister of State for Planning Rajiv Shukla.

Refusing to term this as a farewell meeting, the official said that it is a structured meeting where structure for mid-term appraisal of the 12{+t}{+h} Five-Year Plan and energy security, among others things, are to be discussed.

The Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia is likely to talk about economic situation in India vis-à-vis in various emerging economies and energy security, while the members will make presentations on the different economic sectors being handled by them.

The members include BK Chaturvedi, Saumitra Chaudhuri, Syeda Hameed, Narendra Jadhav, Abhijit Sen, Mihir Shah, K Kasturirangan and Arun Maira.

The objective of the meeting is to use the Planning Commission’s knowledge of economic affairs of the different sectors and send a message about the state of the economy to the new government.

Inflation data According to the advanced estimates of Central Statistics Office (CSO), the economy is estimated to grow at 4.9 per cent in 2013-14 compared to 4.5 per cent in the previous fiscal. Besides, economic growth, the price situation has not been very comfortable particularly in the UPA-II regime.

According to the CSO data released earlier this month, retail inflation in March inched up to 8.31 per cent, from 8.03 per cent in February, mainly on account of a rise in fruit and vegetable prices.

The headline inflation measured in terms of Wholesale Price Index (WPI) also rose to a three-month high of 5.7 per cent in March, mainly due to a spurt in prices of food items such as potato, onions and fruits. On the other hand, the negligible growth in the industrial activity will be a challenge for the new government.

Factory output, measured in terms of index of industrial production (IIP), showed a decline of 0.1 per cent during the 11-month period (April-February) of 2013-14 compared with a growth of 0.9 per cent in the same period of the earlier fiscal.

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