Hike to social sector, inflation high priority: Chidambaram

New Delhi, Feb 28 (UNI) Finance Minister P Chidambaram in his budget 2007-08 today substantially hiked allocations for social sector and flagship programmes of the UPA Government and announced that agriculture was to be given the highest priority to achieve the targetted growth rate of over 9 per cent.

In line with this, the Finance Minister, while presenting his Budget in the Lok Sabha substantially hiked the gross budgetary support to Rs 2,05,100 crore for 2007-08.

The hike in allocation for education is a hefty 34.2 per cent and on health nearly 21 per cent. The UPA's flagship programmes-- National Rural Health Mission (NRHM)--gets Rs 9,907 crore and Sarv Shiksha Abhiyan Rs 10,671 crore.

The Minister introduced a means-cum-merit scholarship to bring down the dropout rate among school children. Besides, the allocation of secondary school education was hiked from Rs 1,837 crore to Rs 3,794 crore.

To free the farmers from the clutches of money-lenders who charge exorbitant interest rates, Mr Chidambaram announced a substantial hike in institutional rate of interest of 7 per cent, notwithstanding the fact that credit growth had been at a break-neck speed of 29.6 per cent. Besides, Mr Chidambaram announced the appointment of a Committee to go into Forward Trading, headed by Planning Commission Member Abhijit Sen.

The Finance Minister announced an increase in Farm Credit to Rs 190,000 crore exceeding the target.

Jolted by the assembly election results in which the failure of the Government to control inflation is regarded as the main reason for the defeat. Mr Chidambaram announced that no step will be spared to bring prices under control using a combination of monetary fiscal and supply side instruments.

MORE UNI