Kolkata: The average GDP growth during the 11th Five Year Plan will be 7.7 percent, said Planning Commission member Narendra Jadhav on Thursday.
While the earlier average GDP growth estimate was put at nine percent, it had been scaled down to 7.7 percent due to the slowdown which sauntered onstage in September 2008, Jadhav told an interactive session here on Thursday.
"India had never experienced a negative growth in two
consecutive quarters unlike the US, Europe and Japan," he said and pointed out that what happened here is only a deceleration in the pace of growth.
Jadhav said that the country has showed strong resilience
in spite of the double-whammy of global economic crisis and
serious drought conditions.
He said in the backdrop of the economic crisis, the foreign exchange reserves of USD 300 billion has helped the
country in maintaining stability of the rupee.
In this context, he said it is not legally possible
to use forex reserves to fund infrastructure development.
On the issue of agriculture, Jadhav said that the country
needed a second Green Revolution, adding it is regrettable
that no consolidated efforts are being initiated since then.
The Plan panel member said the average allocation to the
agriculture sector has actually been declining from the time
of the First Plan to the 10th Plan.
Speaking about the benefits the country has derived
since the start of economic reforms in 1991, he said there has
been a rapid acceleration of growth, reduction in poverty and
exponential growth in the forex reserves.
However, the challenges are improving the human
development index (HDI), improving the quality of education
and sharp rise in unemployment. He said education is an
important sphere to take advantage of demographic dividends
characterised by huge proportion of young population.
PTI