JOIN USRBI to look into State plea on SME credit rejig
Briefing reporters, Subbarao said, following his meeting with Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa and State officials, it was decided that all households in 8,000 villages in the State would be covered with no-frills bank account. Atleast 50 per cent of these would be made operational by March 31, 2010, he added. Further, he said, Karnataka had come forward to undertake the pilot project to improve financial literacy in the country at school and college levels.
Subbarao also pointed out that country’s recovery from the global slowdown would be sharp as it was backed by strong fundamentals, robust rural demand, normal functioning of Indian financial markets, low inflation rate and comfortable foreign exchange reserves. “The short and medium term outlook is mixed—the negative factors like a sharp dip in export growth and diminished business confidence is countered by positive factors like a low inflation rate , sound banking system and comfortable foreign exchange reserves, ” he said.
GDP growth
Meanwhile, a Reserve Bank-conducted survey, on Thursday, lowered India’s growth rate projection to 7.5 per cent per annum for the next 10 years, down from 8.8 per cent estimated earlier. “For next 10 years, GDP is expected to grow at 7.5 per cent, revised downwards from 8.8 per cent in the last survey,” RBI said releasing the results of Professional Forecasters’ Survey.
The survey, cut the growth forecast for 2008-09 to 6.6 per cent from 6.8 per cent and 2009-10 outlook to 5.7 per cent from 6.0 per cent. The fourth quarter of last fiscal 2008-09 is expected to have grown at 5.5 per cent, down from earlier forecast of 6.2 per cent.