Inflation to come down by March end: FM

“The government is committed to bring down inflation to more acceptable levels. I hope to see the March end inflation between 6 to 7 per cent. While we are doing all that we can do to address the issue, I look forward to suggestions from the floor of the House that can help us in addressing this concern,” Mukherjee said, making a suo moto statement in the Lok Sabha.

Inflation has been hovering above 9 per cent for the past 11 months now. Mukherjee said there was an urgent need to amend and enforce the Agriculture Produce Marketing Act to enable farmers to bring their produce directly to the retail outlets and vice versa. He also underlined the need to have unhindered flow of food and other perishable items from one region to another in order to improve supply-side constraints.

On achieving the fiscal deficit target of 4.6 per cent for 2011-12, he said, “We have to be careful not to over-do ourselves in reaching this target since that can have an excessive slowing down impact on growth”.

Mukherjee said achieving 4.6 per cent of fiscal deficit this year was a difficult target, given the deterioration in the global economy and its impact on India in the past three to four months.