More petrol, power, LPG price hikes coming soon, says PM at National Development Council to boost 12th Five Year Plan
global economy has reduced growth everywhere... Our first priority must be to reverse the slowdown. We cannot change the global economy, but we can do something about the domestic constraints which have contributed to downturn," Singh added.
India's economic growth has declined to a nine-year low of 6.5 per cent in 2011-12. For the current fiscal, it is estimated at 5.7-5.9 per cent, which would be the lowest growth in the last decade.
Terming the scaling down of growth for 12th Plan to 8 per cent as a "reasonable modification", Singh said, "achieving an average of 8 per cent growth following less than 6 per cent in the first year is still an ambitious target... The high growth scenario will definitely not materialise if we follow 'a business as usual' policy."
Earlier, Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia said that in view of the domestic and global developments, the growth rate "associated with scenario one (most optimistic outlook) could be scaled down to 8 per cent".
The Prime Minister emphasised that both the Centre and the states should work towards increasing resources to finance programmes of inclusiveness.
Referring to implementation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime, Singh said there was a need to increase the tax ratio as a percent of GDP through combination of tax reforms and better tax administration.
"Early implementation of the GST is critical in this context. I hope we will have the co-operation of the States to introduce the GST as quickly as possible," he
