Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission, Montek Singh Ahluwalia, on Tuesday, lauded India's robust recovery after the global economic meltdown, asserting that the world has seen that India's economic fundamentals are quite strong.
"The second year of the crisis the big job before the government was to make sure that the economic growth, momentum is maintained. Growth of employment is therefore better, many of our critical schemes that are aimed at the 'aam aadmi' (common man), we are watching those very carefully," said Ahluwalia.
"I think, on the whole, it has been a year in which many of the new initiatives, actually all the new initiatives, have taken off. Of course, there is lot more to be done. But I think it''s been a good start," he added, after addressing a roundtable conference on 'The Regulatory Reform Bill 2009'.
On being asked about high fiscal deficit of the country, Ahluwalia said that India's condition is much better than many countries across the globe.
"As a result of the crisis, the people looking at India will perceive that India's economic fundamentals are quite strong. Although we have fiscal deficit, it is much smaller than the fiscal deficit in the countries that have problems. Our debt ratio is much les than the debt ratio of the countries that have problems," said Ahluwalia.
"Most importantly, our growth rate is very high. If you have high fiscal deficit and high debt ratio and very low growth rate, then debt position over time gets worse. But if you have a fiscal deficit you are bringing down, debt situation which is not all that bad, and very high growth rate, what it means is the debt situation will improve over time," he added.
The Prime Minister heads the Planning Commission that charts the Five-Year Plans for the economy.