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| The minister told reporters that the results of the state Assembly elections would encourage the pace of reforms.
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| "The Prime Minister has said the elections will be on schedule. There will be a Budget, a full-Budget, and not a vote-on-account," Singh said after launching a web portal IndiaShining.com today in North Block.
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| Referring to the impact of the Telgi scam, Singh said the government was moving towards dematerialisation of stamp papers, which would be announced within couple of months.
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| When asked about the ministry's silence over Karnataka Chief Minister S M Krishna's letter alleging involvement of certain Indian Security Press officials, Singh said Parliament would be apprised of all aspects of the scam.
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| Singh said the inflation rate was expected to be benign this year and remain below 5 per cent. There was no reason to be worried about the weekly movements in the index. He was responding to a query on the renewed rise in the wholesale price index in the latest reported data for the week ended November 22.
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| Talking on Budget expectations, Singh said there was a need to promote India as an investment destination. He said he would work to further demystify the Budget process. Towards this end, the finance ministry has already begun the system of quarterly reporting of government income and expenditure data to Parliament.
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| The minister held out an assurance that money would not be a constraint for any developmental project. Singh took credit for a "forward looking approach adopted by his ministry" and said he could claim that the ministry "was on the ball" on most of the critical issues and reiterated the need to feel self-confident about the future of the country.
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| Explaining his concept of a second green revolution in agriculture, Singh said it would focus on diversification of the sector. The wishlist included development of waste land, capital expenditure in agricultural growth and expansion of irrigation and value addition of agricultural produce.
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| He, however, refused to comment on the state of disinvestment of the public sector undertakings, stating that the government has put up its review petition before the Supreme Court on Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd and Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd.
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| Singh was non-committal whether the government would be able to realise its ambitious divestment target for the current fiscal. |
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