Maintaining there is no dilution of recent policies, Chief Economic Adviser Kaushik Basu on Friday said the government is trying to solve “trust problems” with industry and hoped the economy will rebound by October.
“I don't think that any policy step (of recent months) has been diluted,” he told reporters when asked if the government is diluting the tax policies initiated by former Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee. The message, he said, “For the last couple of months, we were giving the same message that we want this industry to do well and to be as cooperative as possible.”
On economic growth that slipped to a nine-year low of 6.5 per cent in the last fiscal, he said, “We are hopeful that economy is going to bounce back within 4-5 months. I can’t realistically say that there will be an improvement before October.”
He also exuded confidence that inflation, which is above 7.5 per cent, will drop below 7 per cent by September. He further said that GDP growth will pick up any way, "if we can together a couple of reforms" things would speed up. "We have been stressing that we will have to get a couple of reforms in place for which the big stumbling block has been getting all the political parties in the coalition together. So, that we have been working," he added.
Without specifying , Basu just said, "These (reforms) have been part of government agenda for the last 2-3 months". When asked whether the Prime Minister is trying to rebuild his 1991 team to push economic reforms, Basu said, "I don't think that because of reorganisation you are going to see a boost...They are strengthening the economy which we have been working to capitalise on." He also said the government is working to remove "trust problems" with the industry.