Punjab, Haryana get Rs 1,200 crore for drought relief.

Chandigarh: Farmers in Punjab and Haryana can take a sigh of relief with finance minister Pranab Mukherjee announcing a drought relief package of Rs 800 crore for Punjab and Rs 400 crore for Haryana on Wednesday.

Inaugurating the 10th regional branch of Export Import Bank of India (Exim), the finance minister said the country is poised to break the double-digit growth barrier. He added that major economies have started to pull out of the recessionary trend and world economic growth during 2010 is projected at 3.9%, 0.8% higher than that was projected earlier in October 2009 by IMF, Mukherjee added.

Punjab had demanded a special package from the Centre to fight a drought-like situation in the previous kharif season for paddy and cotton crops. The finance minister has also asked the state to present a detailed plan on its fiscal health, to enable the Centre to carry out a comprehensive study of the issue.

The state’s fiscal health is under stress because of Rs 64, 924 crore debt. Punjab has been seeking help in form of a debt waiver or restructuring of the debt to improve the economy. The finance minister, however, pointed out that the Centre was not considering debt waiver to any state.

“Exim bank has expanded its assets by over hundred times during the past three decades. The bank has 134 operative lines of credit, aggregating to $4.5 billion, covering 94 countries for export of goods and services from India. In the field of international trade, things have started brightening up. A reflection of this is visible in the industrial growth, which has touched 9.6% during April-January 2009-10 as against 3.3% during the corresponding period of previous year,” he said.

He also informed that India’s services trade has gone up from $38 billion in 2002-03 to $154 billion in 2008-09, largely on account of higher exports which nearly quintupled from $21 billion to $102 billion during the same period. He mentioned that India’s exports was $185 billion in 2008-09 and around $132 billion during the period April-January 2010.

“Deceleration in export growth during 2008-09 was on account of slowdown in demand from major emerging markets of Asia and advanced economies of USA, Japan and EU. Growth in India’s exports turned around in November 2009 after falling for 13 months and has continued to be positive till January 2010”, he said. The union finance minister said an analysis of the month-wise exports for India from 2008 onwards indicates recovery in trade with export growth becoming positive in November 2009 over November 2008 at 18.2 per cent. “To encourage exports by states, outlay under the assistance to states for developing export infrastructure and allied activities (ASIDE) has been increased. This will facilitate exports from north-west India and Exim bank’s new office will tap the export potential from this region”, he said.

Source : Financialexpress