BJP slams government over economic slowdown

New Delhi, Mar 10 (ANI): Ahead the Budget Session of Parliament, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Saturday lashed out at the government for economic slowdown.

Speaking to mediapersons in New Delhi, BJP senior leader Arun Jaitley slammed the government over its failure on various economic fronts.

"The government is unable to manage the country's economic system as the environment for investment is not conducive and they have failed to control the spiralling inflation. Everyone from the labour to the people in the industrial sector are worried and there has been a slump in the infrastructure sector," he said.

Senior BJP leader Lal Krishna Advani said that during this Budget Session the party would raise the issue of black money.

"Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee had assured in the Parliament that steps would be taken to bring back the black money. We have decided to put forward a letter in the Parliament on the issue of black money and I hope that it will be addressed and we will know what the government has done in this direction," he said.

India's economic growth slowed to 6.1 percent in the third quarter of the present fiscal year ending in December 2011, the weakest annual pace in almost three years, as high interest rates and rising raw material costs constrained investment and manufacturing.

The Central Statistical Organisation has pegged the GDP growth for 2011-12 at 6.9 per cent, while the Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council (PMEAC) expects that it would be 7.1 per cent.

The slowdown in the manufacturing sector, coupled with decline in mining and quarrying, is likely to put pressure on the Reserve Bank of India to cut interest rate at its mid-quarter monetary policy review on March 15.

It is expected that Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee in his Budget for 2012-13, to be presented on March 16, would announce steps for reviving the economy. (ANI)