PM hails interim budget as "fine balancing act"

Hailing the interim budget as “fine balancing act” between the need to restore the economy to its optimum growth path and the constitutional constrains of a pre-election budget, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said “it will stimulate growth for the country in this period of global recession.

“I have no doubt that the continued stimulus for the various flagship programmes of the Government will provide relief to all sections, chiefly the ‘aam aadmi’, Dr. Singh said in a statement.

He said the aam aadmi has been the centre of our planning process since the UPA came in power. This focus continues and the interim budget for 2009-10 clearly indicates the next steps. It continues to be a people’s budget.

In absence of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who is also holding the finance portfolio, recuperating after bypass surgery he underwent last month, Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee took the responsibility of tabling the budget in the Parliament.

Dr. Singh said the populist budget also kept the industry and export sector, farmer and rural people in mind. “The benefits of the stimulus package for industry and the export sector announced earlier continue to be available. Our stress on increasing the investment on infrastructure and employment generation has been clearly underlined. All this will result in positive turn around in economic activity and levels of confidence.”

Home Minister P Chidambaram, who earlier headed the finance ministry before being shifted to home last year after 26/11, said the acting finance minister had before him an unenviable task—having to present the interim budget at the end of a difficult year hit by a global financial crunch.

“It is, however, a matter of satisfaction that the Indian economy has weathered the global crisis reasonably well and is expected to post growth rate of 7.1% in 2008-09.”

Chidambaram said the numbers in the interim budget will necessarily undergo change when the regular budget is presented. “What is noteworthy is that the UPA government continues to repose faith in its policy of faster and more inclusive growth.”