Finance minister Palaniappan Chidambaram said the government would push for more reforms in its remaining term and stressed that a government with a ?working majority? was vital to pursue effective reforms.

?In the remaining eight to nine months, we hope that we can push through some legislative and non-legislative measures,? the minister said. The government would curb inflation in the next three to six months, he said. ?Tight monetary measures will tame inflation in three to six months,? he added.

?This year was difficult,? but rising inflation in one year cannot wipe out the achievements of the government witnessed during the past four years. Rising oil and commodity prices were driving inflation in India.

?We have no control on international commodities and crude oil prices. We are trying to moderate aggregate demand by sacrificing a bit of growth. There are signs of moderation. But I cannot say whether the trend will continue,? he said, at a reading session of his book ?A view from the outside: why good economics works for everyone? hoted by The Express Group.

On implementing reforms, he said, ?I sincerely hope that those political parties who supported the measures in the committees will continue to support them on the floor of the house. If they don’t, it will be tragic. Unfortunately, there is no record on voting in India,? he pointed out.

Chidambaram said the Left parties, the UPA’s estranged allies, may also support some of the pending reform measures of the government. ?Even the Left may support one or two measures,? he added. The government had delivered a growth of 9% in the past four years, adding, ?It is almost like (cricket legend) Bradman’s batting average.? The government could have delivered better if bills for sectors like banking, insurance, pension had been passed. ?I think we could have touched (a growth of) 10%. I was praying and hoping that in the final year we will touch 10%.? He indicated that the UPA would have met its goals better, if there was a ?working majority? for the government.

Addressing an audience of over 350 people, including the city’s bureaucrats, corporate and cultural leaders, he urged, ?Vote for the party that comes closest to your idea of India and give that party a working majority. Then you will see things happen.?

Responding to a query by Biocon chairman and managing director Kiran Mazumdar Shaw on the relevance of the farm-loan waiver, Chidambaram stressed that the waiver was the need of the hour. Eighty three per cent of the land holdings were held by small farmers who owned less than 2.5 acres and 60% of the land was rain- fed. Twenty per cent of the land in India was fallow at any point of time due to various reasons. The minister said that the waiver- of Rs 66,000 crore-would benefit 3.64 crore farmers and offer Rs 15,000 to each farmer on a per capital basis. ?This would encourage the farmers to go back to farming and bring them back to institutional lending,? he said. The farm-loan waiver scheme was perfectly correct and was not at the cost of other investments. The Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana received investment of Rs 25,000 crore while the National food security mission and national horticulture mission received Rs 4,882 crore. The year 2007-08 saw record production of wheat, paddy, oil seeds, cotton and sugar cane in India since independence. The finance minister said India was only comparable to China in terms of people-potential and said that the country should try to find resources to overtake the Dragon country.

Earlier, Biocon’s Shaw pointed out that the power sector required huge investments and reforms. Speaking on the book, that included articles written by Chidambaram over between 2002 and 2004, Infosys co-chairman Nandan M Nilekani said, ?The fundamental issues that India faced half a decade ago remain relevant even today.? Rajyasabha MP Rajeev Chandrasekhar said that for effective governance, India needed a common economic ideology that is shared by at least a few of the mainstream political parties.

?A View from the Outside? has so far sold 20,000 copies in India.

The Express Group editor-in-chief Shekhar Gupta said, ?As someone who delicately blends the economics and politics of reforms, P Chidambaram’s columns offer a rare insight into the changing dynamics of policy-making. For a newspaper which pro-actively tracks the agents and trends of change in all walks of life, it’s indeed a privilege to be part of such a venture.?