New Delhi: Deficient monsoon is likely to pull down the economic growth in the current fiscal to about six percent, from 6.5 percent a year ago, the Planning Commission said today.
“If we factor in that agriculture which would not be strong … (growth) would be closer to 6 percent. I don’t think we have sufficiently strong industrial turn around yet,” Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia told reporters here.
Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia.
In case of 12th Five-Year Plan (2012-17), he said the annual average economic growth could be around 8.2 percent as against the earlier estimate of 9 percent envisaged in the Approach Paper to the policy document.
As regards 2012-13, the Reserve Bank has recently lowered the growth projection to 6.5 percent from 7.3 percent in the wake of deficient monsoon and global economic problems.
On whether special schemes were needed to tide over the drought like situation, Ahluwalia said, “I don’t think you need an incentive. These are all issues that state governments have to tackle. They are usually very keen to take corrective measures”.
He further said that rural employment guarantee scheme MNREGA can deal with the problem of unemployment in rural areas.
“The growth rate in agriculture will be lower and that means that certain amount of income and employment stress in rural areas will have to be countered. In that perspective the existence of the MNREGA scheme provides a kind of automatic stabliser. If people need work because of the drought, they will get work through MNREGA”, Ahluwalia said.
PTI
