Mumbai: The government, in its blind pursuit of reformist policies, was leading the economy to "greater disaster" by further widening the gap between 'shining' and 'suffering' India, the Left parties said in their reaction to the Economic Survey presented by finance minister P Chidambaram.

They said the UPA government's policies were undermining the very fundamentals of the economy.

"The entire thrust of the Economic Survey is to encourage FDI or pursue the PPP (public-private partnership) route. This sort of economic process, which brought about discrepancies between rich and poor, will lead the Indian economy to greater disaster," CPI-M Politburo member Sitaram Yechury said.

He said the widening rich-poor divide would in itself make these policy recipes incapable of "sustaining long-term economic growth impossible."

While the government has been projecting a GDP growth of close to 9 per cent for the current fiscal, the latest figures released by the Central Statistical Organisation, has put it around 8.7 per cent, he pointed out.

"A gap of one percentage point amounts to almost Rs100,000 crore," Yechury said.

CPI leader Gurudas Dasgupta also said there was a major concentration of wealth in a few hands with 535 families possessing average income and wealth of over Rs100 crore.

The Economic Survey shows that the rate of growth of both agricultural and industrial sectors as also per capita income and consumption had declined considerably and the GDP growth was much less than what was projected, they pointed out.