Indian economic growth will return to above 8 percent: Chidambaram

Kolkata, July 5 (IANS) Exuding confidence of a rebound in the Indian economy, union Home Minister P. Chidambaram Thursday said the country will return to the above 8 percent growth soon.

"The year 2011-12 has been a difficult year when our growth declined to 6.7 percent. We think we are identifying the causes for the decline and will take a number of steps to address those causes. I am confident that in 2012-13, the rebound will start and soon we will be back to the 8 percent plus growth rate," said Chidambaram.

He said the high propensity of the Indians to save will catalyse the growth of the economy.

"The basis to say that the economy will bounce back is the fundamentals of the Indian economy. The propensity of the Indians to save still remains high. Moreover many business houses in the country are sitting on pile of funds," said Chidambaram, a former finance minister.

He said that in spite of the decline of growth and the ongoing international financial crisis which also affected India, the central government did not cut down or scrap any of the developmental programmes run by it.

"Every single major programme has been funded by the government of India. We have neither cut back nor scrapped any programme. The expenditure on these programmes like the (rural jobs scheme) MNREGA, (urban development scheme) JNNURM, etc was Rs.48,213 crore in the 11th Plan which has been raised by 180 percent to be at Rs.136, 060 crore in the 12th Plan," he said.

He also said the country was amongst the fastest growing economies of the world.

"In the year 2011-12, we added 20,500 MW of additional power capacity, 34 lakh new BPL (below poverty line) families were given electricity connections, and 8,000 villages were newly electrified."