The Hindu : Front Page : Rangarajan quits as EAC chief

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Saturday, Aug 09, 2008
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Rangarajan quits as EAC chief

Special Correspondent

C. Rangarajan

NEW DELHI: Ahead of the release of India’s economic outlook projections by the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council (EAC), its chairman C. Rangarajan on Friday stepped down from the post. He is to be nominated to the Rajya Sabha.

Dr. Rangarajan is to be succeeded by EAC member Suresh Tendulkar. He is expected to take charge next week.

When contacted, Dr. Rangarajan did not assign any reason and merely said: “I have resigned.”

“Rangarajan has submitted his resignation papers and orders have been issued to appoint Suresh Tendulkar to head the Council,” an EAC official said.

According to EAC sources, Dr. Rangarajan’s exit from the advisory council would have no impact on its report on the ‘Review of outlook of Indian Economy for 2008-09’, expected to be submitted next week. As projected by Dr. Rangarajan earlier this week, the EAC is expected to scale down its growth forecast of GDP (gross domestic product) from 8.5 per cent to 7.5-8.0 per cent for the current fiscal while anticipating the inflation rate to moderate to about 8-9 per cent by March 2009.

“There are certain factors, both domestic and external, which may add to the slowdown of the growth rate, but we still think that the growth rate could be 7.5 to eight per cent,” Dr. Rangarajan had told journalists on the sidelines of a function here.

One of the country’s highly respected economists, he had earlier advised the government on various ticklish such as special economic zones (SEZs), oil prices, futures trading, farm commodity prices and listed measures that were required to check overheating of the economy last year. These issues apart, he also helped in tackling critical policy issues such as inflation, GDP growth, exchange rate management and funding of infrastructure projects through foreign exchange reserves.

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