Speaking at his annual post-Budget interaction with various industry chambers, finance minister P Chidambaram today said at his meeting with Assocham that rising inflation could be tackled in the long run only through increased supply of farm products, which was precisely the focus of Budget 2007-08.

He said that while fiscal steps would have some immediate impact, the monetary side would take some time to migrate in to the system, making supply side management a more durable answer to inflation. "More wheat, more rice, more sugar, more pulses, more oil seeds is durable side," he told Assocham's members.

Defending the Budget's focus on the farm sector, Chidambaram said that just as augmenting the supply of inputs was the answer to industry's durable growth, raising the supply of these would be a durable answer for agriculture. "The laws of economics cannot be different for agriculture," he said.

He was of the view that 2007-08 would also witness high growth and that the supply of inputs to industry would increase with rising growth.