FM Arun Jaitley to bankroll growth

With private investment failing to pick up and monsoon playing truant on agriculture production, finance minister Arun Jaitley on Tuesday favoured increasing public spending to boost the economic growth.

India has been growing by 7-7.5 per cent, and for the country to accelerate, all sectors have to contribute, he said at the MGNREGA Sammelan.

“Bad monsoon of last two years has resulted in rural spending going down. In such a situation, the government needs to come forward. The government must increase its spending. The pace of public spen-ding has increased,” Mr Jaitley said.

The finance minister’s statement goes against the advice of RBI governor Raghuram Rajan against accelerating economic growth by borrowing more as it will increase inflationary pr-essures in the economy.

“If you look at the global situation there is slow growth. The economies, which were earlier compared with India like, South Africa, Brazil, Russia are all growing slow. In a way there is a negative growth rate, but economies are recovering,” Mr Jaitley said at the summit.