India will grow at 8-10 percent in coming years: Mukherjee

Manila, May 4 (IANS) Dismissing all talk of policy inertia, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee Friday asserted that the government is focussed on recovering the growth momentum in the economy and India will grow at a sustained 8-10 percent in coming years on the back of strong fundamentals.

"I am confident that the strong fundamentals of our economy will help us return to a sustained growth path of 8 to 10 per cent per annum in the coming years," Mukherjee said at the annual meeting of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) here.

Mukherjee said the government's policy was focussed on recovering the growth momentum of pre-global economic crisis of 2008.

"For the current fiscal year, we have set our objective to focus on recovering our pre-crisis growth momentum, create conditions for rapid revival of high growth in private investment and address supply bottlenecks in agriculture, energy and transport sectors," the finance minister said.

The economy had registered an over 9 percent growth before the 2008 global economic crisis.

In 2011-12, the growth is estimated to fall to 6.9 percent in 2011-12 as compared to 8.4 growth registered in the previous year.

The government has set a target of 7.6 percent growth for the current financial year.

Mukherjee said that India's development strategy was inclusive growth. "We have empowered the people by giving them access to entitlement backed by legal enactment," he said, referring to measures like Right to Education, Right to Information, Right to Employment and Right to Food.

Talking to reporters on the sidelines of the event, Mukherjee blamed volatility in global commodity prices for the recent depreciation in the value of the Indian rupee.

The rupee fell to a low of 53.47 against a dollar Friday, the lowest level in almost four months. The Indian currency has depreciated by over 15 percent in the last few months.