Double-digit growth needs fresh momentum: Pranab

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SME Times News Bureau | 05 Apr, 2010
Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee has called for imparting a fresh momentum to the impressive economic recovery witnessed in the past few months and take the country on the path of double-digit growth.

"We have weathered the global economic crisis well and Indian economy now is in a far better position, but we still have challenges which need to be addressed," he said, addressing the first convocation of the Indian Institute Management-Shillong on Saturday in Meghalaya.

He said the first challenge before the government is to quickly revert to the high GDP growth rate of 9 per cent and cross "double-digit growth barrier".

"But this calls for imparting a fresh momentum to the impressive recovery in growth," Mukherjee said.

He said weaknesses at different levels of governance are posing a challenge to India's growth.

There have been many initiatives at different sectors, at a different points of time and some of them have been effective in reforming the way the government works. However, one factor that can hold India back in realising its potential is the bottleneck of the public delivery mechanisms, he said.

"Our system of governance, including economic governance, must work towards economic empowerment and make growth human-specific," Mukherjee said.

Stressing that economic growth has to be an instrument of development and not an end in itself, he said: "We need to harness the economic growth to consolidate the recent gains in making development more inclusive in the fields of rural development, to strengthen food security, improve education opportunities and provide health facilities".