India to maintain 7.6% GDP growth rate this fiscal: FM

NEW DELHI: Buoyed by prospects of a good monsoon, finance minister Arun Jaitley on Thursday expressed optimism that India would retain its position as the fastest

NEW DELHI: Buoyed by prospects of a good monsoon, finance minister Arun Jaitley on Thursday expressed optimism that India would retain its position as the fastest growing major economy and that a GDP growth rate of 7.6% would be maintained.

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Jaitley was replying to a debate on the supplementary demands for grants that provides for an additional spending of ₹1.03 lakh crore with a cash outgo of ₹20,948.26 crore. The supplementary demands, passed by the Lok Sabha, provides for a technical grant of ₹82,000 crore to the Food Corporation of India.

Jaitley said that despite the grave challenges to the world economy, India has remained an isolated island of growth. After shrinking exports in the last 15 months, some revival has been seen in the last two months and state governments are competing to attract investments.

Responding to charges from Opposition about cut in allocations for the social sector, Jaitley said the government’s spending under the including the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme was actually more. He pointed out that the UPA government’s budgetary allocation for MNREGA in 2010-11 was ₹40,100 crore, while the actual expenditure amounted to ₹35,840 crore. Against this, the NDA government provided for ₹34,700 2015-16, while it actually spent ₹37,300 crore, he said.

Congress leader M Mallikarjuna Kharge countered Jaitley’s argument, saying that such comparisons were misplaced as the minimum daily wages had doubled during the last five years.