New Delhi, May 6: The debate on contribution of futures trading to inflation gathered momentum with planning commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia saying that such trading does not lead to higher prices of commodities.

Ahluwalia's comments came two days after finance minister P Chidambaram hinted at a ban on futures trading in food articles as part of efforts to contain rising prices. "If rightly or wrongly, people perceive that commodity futures trading is contributing to a speculation- driven rise in prices, then in a democracy you will have to heed that voice," Chidambaram had said in Madrid, where he attended the Asian development bank's annual meeting.

Ahluwalia said that the government could take some more measures to contain inflation in case prices do not soften in the coming days. "We are not at all happy with the rate of inflation. It should come down. government can take more measures if needed," he said at an event organised by Microsoft India on Tuesday.

Inflation touched a 42-month high of 7.57 % for the week ended April 19 as compared to 7.33 % in the previous week.

Ahluwalia, however, did not elaborate on specific measures that the government should take to contain inflation. Bellying the expectation that steps taken to contain inflation would impact growth, Ahluwalia said that India is likely to record a growth of 8 % during the current fiscal.

According to the RBI annual credit policy, Indian economy would grow between 8-8.5 % during the current year. During 2007-08, the economy expanded by 8.7 %.

—PTI

editor@expressindia.com