Supplementary demands for grants passed by LS

New Delhi, Dec 12 (UNI) The Lok Sabha today passed the supplementary demands for grants by voice vote.

The supplementary demands for 2004-05 were for Rs 33826.56 crore and those for 2006-07 were for Rs 10378.64 crore.

Earlier replying on the bill, Finance Minister P Chidambaram said this would enable the Government to spend more towards some of the priority sectors.

He said it would be wrong to say that the economy was not doing well. In fact, the Indian economy was the second fastest growing economy in the world.

Mr Chidambaram said the only worrying aspect of the economy was inflation and the Government was very much aware of it. He said though inflation was a monetory phenomenon, still it could not be overlooked and a number of steps had already been initiated to keep a check on this.

The Finance Minister said the recent decision of the Reserve Bank of India to increase the CRR was to mop up a large chunk of the cash from the market.

Apart from this, the new arrival of wheat and sugarcane would help in stabilising the inflation, he added.

He said, ''Though we are concerned about the inflation, it is also a fact that in the last ten years, the highest inflation was during June 2001 when it touched 8.8 per cent. The average inflation during the UPA regime was between 3 and 3.5 per cent.'' Eds: Here pick up suitably from earlier series.

UNI BKS PK KP2022