Prime Minister Manmohan Singh pays a floral tribute at the memorial of late prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, on his 67th birth anniversary, at Vir Bhoomi, New Delhi yesterday
Agencies/New Delhi

India aims to accelerate economic growth to 9%, despite deepening global financial worries and stubborn domestic inflationary pressures, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said yesterday.
The higher growth target comes even though India’s hawkish central bank, which has hiked interest rates 11 times in 18 months, says slower expansion may be required to rein in close to double-digit inflation.
“We want to achieve a growth rate of 9% per annum (starting in 2012),” Singh said as he outlined the Congress government’s goals for India’s next five-year economic plan to 2017.
Despite launching moves to free up its economy two decades ago, India still runs on five-year plans introduced in 1951 by its first premier, Jawaharlal Nehru, who admired the-then Soviet Union’s central economic planning model.
Singh told reporters in New Delhi he wanted to keep open “the possibility of raising the growth rate - if the domestic and international situation improves - to 9.2%.”
Looking cheerful and confident, despite the political storm brewing around him, the prime minister said both second generation economic reforms and a strong Lokpal will be pursued, asking people to appreciate the legislative process involved.
“Considering the uncertainties in global environment, as also inflationary pressures at home, it would be prudent to have a growth target which would ensure the achievement of the objective of the target of sustained, inclusive growth,” the prime minister said.
Called the architect of first generation reforms, which he initiated as finance minister in 1991, Singh said the next stage of economic liberalisation will also fall in place, with parties with different ideologies, joining hands in India’s interests.
The prime minister said the while second-generation reforms were being pursued they will require a wide consensus. At the same time, he hoped such a consensus will eventually emerge, as it did when the programme was first launched in 1991.
“Second generation reforms are essential. But they are a lot more difficult. They require broad-based national consensus,” he said, adding: “Effort has to be to create a climate of opinion where all political parties unite in national interest.”
India’s economy has grown by around 8.6% a year since 2006 while neighbouring emerging market giant China’s economy has expanded by nearly 10% in the same period.
While the 9% goal may seem lofty in the face of anaemic Western growth, it represents an official climb-down from the government’s dream of attaining double-digit economic growth in the next five-year plan.
The ruling Congress Party has long wanted to make history as the administration which first ushered in 10% growth - touted by successive governments as vital to haul hundreds of millions of Indians out of poverty.
The government is projecting growth of around 8.5% for the current year to March 2012, equal to the previous year’s expansion.
But that forecast is far above bearish predictions of many private economists who expect growth in the low 7% range as interest rate hikes bite and private investment slows.