Pranab Mukherjee holds pre-budget session with NGOs

Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee held a meeting with several non governmental organisations (NGOs) to get their inputs for the General Budget 2011-12, here on Thursday.

This was the fourth meeting in the series of pre-Budget consultations held by theFinance Minister with the stakeholders of different sectors.

The first meeting was held on Jan 7 with the stakeholders of agriculture sector, the second meeting was held on Jan 11 with captains of Indian industry and the third in the series was held on Jan 12 with the representatives of different trade unions.

Welcoming the representatives from different NGOs, the Finance Minister said that feedback from the grassroot level is very important for effective policy making and for strengthening public accountability.

He said that the Indian economy has recorded one of the fastest growth rates in the world and the recovery has been broad based with agriculture, industry and services all contributing to the consolidation of the growth momentum.

Mukherjee further said,? Our main challenge is to sustain this high GDP growth over an extended period of time and find the means to cross the ‘double digit growth barrier’ in the coming years.?

Describing the NGO sector as an important stakeholder in the development process, the minister said, ?We are aware that it has been the Government?s endeavour to engage this sector in policy making, to improve the delivery of public goods and services to the people and help in strengthening accountability of public agencies and public officials.?

He also added that, with development and economic reforms, the focus of economic activity is shifting towards the non-governmental sectors and there is a need to create and strengthen an enabling ethos so that individual enterprise can flourish and ordinary citizens can, for most parts, provide for the needs of one another.