Eminent Economist and London School of Economics Global Dimensions Programme Director Prof Lord Meghnad J Desai today underlined that the country was not able to achieve double digit growth and was struggling below it. Delivering the K L N Prasad Memorial Lecture at Administrative Staff College of India here today, he noted that the growth rate which was 3.5 to four per cent earlier has now touched eight per cent. Stating that there was corruption at the government level, he said people much more regretted lack of decisiveness in politics. Coming down heavily on the UPA II government at the Centre, Mr Desai said majority of the people outside the government thought that steps would be taken by the government to improve their plight but the Manmohan Singh government took decisions and withdrew them later. Faulting Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee for saying that he can do something but cannot do due to no strength (members) for the Congress Party in the Parliament, he said it was ‘astonishing’ to hear these kind of statements though the Congress Party has 208 Lok Sabha members.
The noted economist said there was a structure of problem brewing for a while in the country as the coalition governments at the Centre had not fared well so far. In the UK, coalition partners meet each other and have intensive discussions on what areas they have to concede and not to concede. The people there anticipated coalition and prepared for it. The coalition government in UK prepareds documents and it is official and binding for the coalition to implement it.