NEW DELHI, 6 April 2005 — Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the architect of India’s decade-old economic reforms, said yesterday the country was not on track to achieving long-term growth targets.

He told a meeting of the economic think tank, the Planning Commission, that objectives such as improving employment generation had been “unsatisfactory so far.”

“There are several positive features which are noted, but there are also signs that the economy is not on track to achieve many of the important targets... corrective policies are therefore urgently needed,” Manmohan said.

The prime minister said a cornerstone of the long-term growth plan was reversing the decline in growth in the farm sector, but said the “performance of agriculture appeared to have deteriorated even further.”

Manmohan said the sector - which employs more than 60 percent of India’s work force - is likely to record an average growth of 1.5 percent in the first three years as compared with the target of more than four percent growth for a five-year period.

“The slippages that have been recorded in the growth rate of the economy, especially agriculture, have wide-ranging implications... growth of employment and reduction in poverty are both intimately linked to growth performance,” he said.

He said his government had initiated a food-for-work program in rural areas as another for universal education, but added the success of the policies could only be measured by the outcomes. “It is important that as a country, we learn to walk on two legs, one embracing the processes of high growth and the other on economic development to the marginalized,” Manmohan added.

“There seems to be increasing disquiet and discontent among many groups — tribal communities in particular are unhappy about their lot, whether it be land rights, access to education and health,” Manmohan said.