Need to improve competition in the agricultural market, says Pranab Mukherjee

New Delhi, Nov 16(ANI): Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee on Monday said that there is a need to improve competition in the agricultural market to benefit farmers as well as the consumers.

Addressing a conference on Competition, Public Policy and Common Man in the national capital, Mukherjee said that the ability to make the desired innovative changes would be a litmus test for the country.

"There is a scope to include competition in the agriculture market. The real litmus test would be to reach out to the common man. This should offer better price mechanism," Mukherjee said.

Mukherjee also reiterated that the Government had no plans to remove fiscal stimulus packages and said that stimulus measures ranging from cuts in factory levies to higher Government spending helped cushion the economy against the global financial crisis.

"The resilience shown by the Indian economy in face of adversity at a time fiscal and monetary stimulus put in place by the Government and central bank of India, in this case Reserve Bank helped the Indian economy to weather the crisis without such intervention," Mukherjee said.

"On hindsight I think we agree the impact of global financial crisis on the Indian economy would have been harder without such intervention," he added.

The fiscal stimulus has been funded by a record 97.7 billion dollar Government borrowing program for this fiscal year.

Earlier on November 8, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had said that the economy grew 6.7 percent in 2008-2009 with the help of an economic stimulus package designed to counter the global recession. (ANI)