NEW DELHI – The Prime Minister’s economic advisory council (PMEAC) on Monday admitted that investor sentiment has been dented in recent months as government has been busy combating corruption-related controversies and suggested it to take measures to improve the investment climate.
While identifying the impediments to return to a high growth path after the economic slowdown, PMEAC’s Economic Outlook 2011-12 said, “The spate of corruption related controversies that has emerged over the past one year, has consumed energies of government and has led to an unintended slowing down of initiatives to restore investment and economic confidence.”
The observation by the panel of economists led by C Rangarajan , former RBI governor and a key economic aide of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, comes just days after finance minister Pranab Mukherjee tried to paint a businessas-usual picture before investors and the media. Within hours, the finance minister maintained that the perception of policy paralysis was wrong. “He (Mukherjee) stated that he found this view to be based more on perception than facts because several significant policy initiatives had been taken in the recent past and many others were in the pipeline,” a finance ministry statement on the minister’s meeting with top industrialists said.
