Steps being taken to contain inflation: Chidambaram

New Delhi, Feb 2 (UNI) Finance Minister P Chidambaram today expressed concern over the rising inflation and said steps are being taken to contain it.

Inflation rate stood at 6.11 per cent for the week ended January 20 on account of higher prices of manufactured products and foods, breaching the upper limit of 5.5 per cent set by the RBI for this fiscal.

Mr Chidambaram said ''the present inflation is the result of high growth'' and expressed confidence that ''the government will gain mastery in dealing with it''.

He was speaking at a meeting of the Parliamentary Consultative Committee of Finance Ministry here.

During the meeting, the finance minister sought suggestions from the members of the committee for the General Budget 2007-08.

The members urged the minister to pay attention to rural areas and increase investment in agriculture, fix a lower rate of interest for loans to farmers and make farm inputs cheaper to reduce the cost of production.

They suggested against the taxation of agricultural income as majority of the farmers are already in distress.

Other suggestions included abolition of central sales tax, review of the revenue implications of special economic zones, make the tax structure more efficient, creation of corpus fund for farmers and restructuring of petro prices.

Mr Chidambaram assured the members that their demands will be considered.

The meeting was attended by Minister of State for Finance S S Palanimanickam and Pawan Kumar Bansal among other senior officers in the finance ministry and the committee members.

UNI