In a cautious budget crafted amid continuing high inflation and uncertain global signals, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee on Monday steered clear of any big-bang reform announcements.

Instead, through a slew of seemingly piecemeal measures, he sought to sustain the economic growth momentum, strengthen infrastructure to enable a shift to higher growth in the years ahead and reducesocial imbalances through some effort at inclusive development.

During his speech in the Lok Sabha, he indicated that the budget was a transition towards a more transparent and result-oriented economic management system and while developments on the country'sexternal sector were encouraging, continued high food prices remained the government's principal concern.

In fact, the trend revealed shortcomings in distribution and marketing which showed up in huge differences between wholesale and retail prices at the expense of remunerative prices for farmers and competitive prices for consumers.

Published Date : Tuesday, 1/3/2011 1:02 PM IST