Mukherjee holds a pre-budget meeting with NGOs

New Delhi, Jan 22 (ANI): Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee held a pre-budget meeting with NGO representatives here on Thursday.

Rajesh Tandon, President of Participatory Research in Asia, an NGO, said: "A wide range of issues were discussed and it was let known to the minister and other officials on the need to enhance proper channelling of allocations as well as appropriate execution of relevant programmes.

"Unless we improve the delivery of services and we create the system of improved performance culture, unless we use budget to incentive performance, we talked about input as oppose to outcome, additional allocations will not make difference," Tandon added.

He also said that problems faced by the NGOs were brought to the notice of the ministry.The various provisions of Income Tax Act and amendments made over the last two years, actually makes it very difficult for the non governmental organisations to function," added Tandon.

Earlier, Mukherjee held parleys with economists, corporate leaders, trade union leaders and also Finance Ministers from various states wherein he urged that a collaborative stance must be taken to combat rise in the prices of food items.

India's inflation hit a one-year high in December 2009, fuelled by almost 20 percent jump in food prices, due to weak monsoon rains and flooding in parts of the country. (ANI)