Faster growth fuels inflation: Lord Paul

Growth should not be at the cost of inflation as faster growth fuels inflation and the poor are hit, according to NRI industrialist Lord Swraj Paul.

The entire country, other than the poor, were speaking about growth and everybody was celebrating it. "One should know that faster growth leads to inflation. If you run fast, you will get tired more," Lord Paul told PTI in an interview here. "The inflation rate from 4 to 7.41 per cent in six months is something we should be worried about," he said. He said 9.5 per cent growth would be of no value unless per capita growth increased. 

Asked what the government should do, Lord Paul replied, "All governments know what to do. It is really a question of doing it. There are some very eminent Indian economists who work even in Britain and are part of British think tank. It is a question of what your priority is. 

"We can have much faster growth in Britain, if we want to, but the British government has decided that it wants two per cent inflation," he said. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, he said, did a marvellous job by putting the monetary policy in the hands of the Governor of the Bank of England after taking it away from himself. Inflation should be contained as it affected the poor people, he said.