By IANS,
New Delhi : Assuring that inflation will “moderate” and economic growth in India will be “satisfactory”, outgoing finance minister P. Chidambaram Monday said the year has been “most eventful” in his career.
Chidambaram will be taking over as the union home minister after Shivraj Patil Sunday resigned in the wake of the Mumbai terror attacks.
“I am moving today to the ministry of home affairs. I will be less than honest if I don’t say I was disinclined (to accept the new portfolio). But the final call is taken by party leader — in my case Congress president Sonia Gandhi — and Prime Minister (Manmohan Singh),” Chidambaram told reporters in his last press conference as the finance minister.
“After four years of reasonably satisfactory growth, I was looking forward to an uneventful year. But it turned out to be the most eventful of my ministerial career,” he said while referring to “first four months of rising inflation, food and commodity prices”.
“The next four months witnessed global financial meltdown and the last four were even more eventful,” a smiling Chidambaram said.
He said there were some incomplete works in the finance ministry but assured that “inflation will moderate and the economic growth will be satisfactory” under Mammohan Singh who will be holding the finance portfolio.
He said the prime minister will be holding the finance ministry “for the time being”.
“Prime minister was a governor of Reserve Bank of India, deputy chairperson planning commission and a finance minister… we need coordination of these three (in finance ministry) and he (Manmohan Singh) has held all the three position earlier,” he said.
Mammohan Singh, he said, would be able to maintain economic growth.