9% growth will require longer time: FM

Mukherjee said this fiscal “we will have 6 per cent plus growth.” “Whether that will be 6.5 or 6.2 per cent I cannot say. To achieve 7 to 8 per cent,(it) will be possible in the short term.”

Promising to continue reforms in various sectors of the economy,the minister said,”the process (which) began in the early 90s will continue in the right earnest so that the economy is back on the path of 9 per cent growth at the earliest.”

Having grown by nine per cent during the three years ending March 2008,India’s economic growth rate slipped to 6.7 per cent during 2008-09,mainly on account of the impact of the global financial crisis.

With 246 districts out of a total of about 600 facing drought,the growth rate is estimated to decelerate further to little over 6 per cent. The Reserve Bank of India in its first quarterly review of the credit policy projected 6 per cent growth rate for the current fiscal with upward bias.