9% growth tough, but must be positive: PM

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh wondered whether India will achieve 9 % growth target in 12th plan (2012-17) and sought collective action against the "mood of negativism" that has gripped the country in wake of recent scams. Chetan Chauhan reports.

Updated on: Oct 23, 2011, 01:18:11 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Prime Minister Manmohan Singh wondered whether India will achieve 9 % growth target in 12th plan (2012-17) and sought collective action against the "mood of negativism" that has gripped the country in wake of recent scams.

The PM also disagreed with charge of two chief ministers - Jayalalithaa of Tamil Nadu and Narendra Modi of Gujarat - of central government bias against non-Congress ruled states.

"If there is perception of discrimination it is a perception and not based on reality," he said, in his concluding remarks at the meeting of country's topmost policy framing body National Development Council, which approved the 12th plan approach paper.

PM's apprehension on economic growth was backed by finance minister Pranab Mukherjee who said the debt crisis in Europe and slowdown in the US were impacting domestic economy.

The Planning Commission had pegged 12th plan economic growth target at 9.5 to 10 % but lowered it in wake of recent global economic crises.

With plan panel deputy chairperson Montek Singh Ahluwalia saying that global economic uncertainty could continue for another two years, panel sources achieving 8 to 8.5 percent growth in next plan will be an achievement. In 11th plan (2007-12), economy grew at annual average of 8.2 % as against the target of 9 %.

"The current slowdown is a matter of concern," PM Singh said at a meeting attended by 24 Chief Ministers and drew attention of investors towards India's two decades of economic reforms initiated by him as finance minister in 1991 and perused by different political parties in the State and the Centre. "It is our collective responsibility to reverse the mood of negativism," he said.

The PM found some truth in the criticism that high economic growth had not brought enough inclusiveness and urged states to rise above party politics, once elections are over, to ensure "longer term development".

The PM expressed "sympathy" towards claim of state Chief Ministers that Central government schemes were not flexible as per specific needs of the states and said solution to the problem would be found in 12th plan.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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