IMF to India - more monetary steps required for fighting slowdown

The IMF (International Monetary Fund) on Wednesday advised India to initiate more monetary steps to battle the country's slowing economic growth, which the international multilateral agency expects to moderate to 6.25 per cent in the current fiscal and fall further by one percentage point in 2009-10.

With inflation softening to a six-year low of 2.43 per cent, there is scope for further easing of monetary policy, the IMF said in its review of the economy following Article IV consultations with the Indian authorities.

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"A number of (IMF) directors saw scope for further monetary easing, in (the) light of the projected decline in inflationary pressures and the need to reinforce confidence and sustain bank credit," the review said.

The IMF expects average inflation to moderate to 2 per cent in 2009-10 from about 8.8 per cent in the current fiscal. Inflation has been coming down consistently after touching a peak of 12.91 per cent in August last year.

The gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate in the current fiscal has been projected at 6.25 per cent by the IMF, as against the government's forecast of 7.1 per cent.

The IMF expects the growth rate in the next fiscal (2009-10), beginning less than a fortnight from now, to fall to 5.25 per cent. As part of the annual exercise to review the economies of the member countries, the IMF's executive board had held consultations with the Indian authorities on February 6.

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While suggesting that India focus on monetary measures, the IMF cautioned that additional expenditure and more tax reliefs for fighting economic slowdown could raise public debt to unsustainable levels.

Noting that the key short-run policy objective should be to sustain liquidity and credit flows, the review said "monetary and structural policies will have to continue to carry most of the burden of adjustment".

And already the fiscal deficit of india has increased many times and government is still giving more sops to business houses and people just to get a WOW factor ahead of 15th general elections.

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