The newly appointed Deputy Chairman of Planning Commission, Dr. Montek Singh Ahluwalia hopes early recovery of market and said that country's economy would grow at least 6.7 per cent during the current fiscal despite various odds.

Mr. Ahluwalia, in a press conference, said, "What I can say is we should at least be aiming at the same growth as achieved last year and I think we could do a little better."

He stressed the need to spend more in infrastructure and development projects to propel demand and maintain sufficient growth rate of economy across all key segments, currently under pressure due to slump in demand.

The Deputy Chairman of key policy making body further added, "We are using the reserves we have to fund infrastructure. I would like to have the new Commission in place [and] then we look at all these issues after the budget is presented and so on."

He said that people have a lot of expectations from the UPA government and it would introduce more social sector schemes like the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) in order to meet people's expectations and eradiate poverty from the country.

Mr. Ahluwalia said that rural areas still need more attention and the commission will pay special focus on deprived areas in the eleventh plan besides making the existing schemes more effective in coming fiscal.