Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia. Photo Getty Images
Deficient monsoon is likely to pull down the economic growth in the current fiscal to about six per cent, from 6.5 per cent a year ago, the Planning Commission said.
"If we factor in that agriculture which would not be strong ... (growth) would be closer to 6 per cent. I don't think we have sufficiently strong industrial turn around yet," Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia told reporters.
In case of 12th Five-Year Plan (2012-17), he said the annual average economic growth could be around 8.2 per cent as against the earlier estimate of 9 per cent envisaged in the Approach Paper to the policy document.
As regards 2012-13, the Reserve Bank has recently lowered the growth projection to 6.5 per cent from 7.3 per cent in the wake of deficient monsoon and global economic problems. On whether special schemes were needed to tide over the drought like situation, Ahluwalia said, "I don't think you need an incentive. These are all issues that state governments have to tackle. They are usually very keen to take corrective measures".
He further said that rural employment guarantee scheme MNREGA can deal with the problem of unemployment in rural areas. "The growth rate in agriculture will be lower and that means that certain amount of income and employment stress in rural areas will have to be countered. In that perspective the existence of the MNREGA scheme provides a kind of automatic stabliser. If people need work because of the drought, they will get work through MNREGA", Ahluwalia said.
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