Growth should be on national centre stage: Chidambaram

Home Minister P Chidambaram today said that growth should occupy centre stage of national polity as 9% growth is necessary to effectively deal with poverty and unemployment.

"My biggest regret is that the centre stage has been vacated by concerns of growth, change and centre stage has been occupied by concerns relating to security and corruption," he said while speaking at an event organised by industry body FICCI.

Pointing out that security and corruption are important issues, he said, "I do not (think) ... we should allow these to occupy centre stage. Centre stage (should be occupied by)... growth, reforms, better governance".

Describing the current slowdown as a "blip", Chidamabram, former Finance Minister, stressed that it was possible to achieve and sustain nine per cent growth.

"9% growth is sustainable over a period of 10-15 years. So the blip which you see today in declining investments or more outward foreign investments or high inflation all these can be resolved by a good mix of policies," he said.

Indian economy was expanding at over nine per cent before the global economic slowdown pulled down the country''s growth rate. During the current fiscal, the economy is projected to record a growth rate of 8%, down from 8.5% recorded during 2010-11.

Referring to the high-voltage telecom scam, Chidambaram said, "The impact of 1992 stock scam was far greater than current 2G scam yet the government did not allow itself to be distracted."

As regards the concern of governance, the Home Minister said, "There are also shinning examples of good governance...the problem is how to make good governance more or less universal."