6.5% GDP growth
By Uday Chatterjee | 28 Feb 2001
The government is targeting 6.5 per cent growth in gross domestic product, according to Rakesh Mohan, chief economic advisor to the government of India.
The strategy for achieving the target depends upon an expenditure management programme, which includes stringent expenditure control of non-productive expenditure, rationalisation of subsidies and improvement in the quality of government expenditure.
The programme also brings in check perquisites and pensions paid to government employees, a voluntary retirement scheme, increased user charges, reduction in provident fund and small savings rates and identification of centrally sponsored schemes that can be transferred to states with resource flow linked to performance.
His strategy for achieving the 6.5 per cent growth target is also based on revenue enhancement through widening of the tax base and administration of a "fair and equitable tax regime". In his budget speech in parliament on 28 February, finance minister Mr Sinha also said that to achieve a faster rate of growth there is a need to speed up agricultural sector reforms and improve management of the food economy.
Mr Sinha said that there is a need to intensify investment in the infrastructure sector, continued reforms in the financial sector and capital market, and deepening of structural reforms through the removal of tiresome controls constraining economic activity. "The government would also lay emphasis on human development through better educational opportunities and programmes of social security," Mr Sinha said.
