In his first press conference after being elected for a second consecutive term as deputy chairman of the Planning Commission, Montek Singh Ahluwalia spoke on some of the economy’s crucial sectors

On Growth:

What I can say is that we should at least be aiming at the same growth as achieved last year (6.7 per cent), and I think we could do a little better. Many people say 7 per cent growth is not impossible this fiscal. A lot of it depends on how the global economy behaves in the second half of this fiscal. Everybody expects the sharp downturn to come to an end, but people are not sure how good a rebound we are going to see in the world economy.

On infrastructure:

We are using the reserves we have to fund infrastructure. There are many other mechanisms that could be thought of, and we need to look at all these sources. I would not say that we have specific proposals right now. In the past we have suggested ways to finance infrastructure projects. Government strategy involved public spending and public-private partnerships

On Stimulus in the Budget:

Since we have begun talks with the finance ministry, I would not comment on the outcome which will be seen in the Budget. We are talking about what the appropriate size for plan expenditure in the year 2009-2010 should be. I should mention that the Interim Budget already included a significant increase over the previous year because of the stimulus that was introduced. So, the 2009-2010 numbers are already substantially higher. What we are looking at is if there is a case for doing a little bit more in some sectors. We are looking at the expenditure absorption capacity of different sectors and then making some recommendations.

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