New Delhi, Nov 17: Commenting on the propaganda against the Indo-US civil nuclear deal, Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh today said that the deal will not hurt the country's strategic interests, and reiterated that "the deal was important to maintain economic growth".

"I would like to say that the propaganda that is being made that this nuclear deal will any way hurt our strategic programme is totally false," Dr. Singh said at the day-long AICC meeting here.

"I have stated repeatedly on several occasions that this agreement concerns only the civilian side of nuclear energy, and that it will have no bearing on the strategic and security programme, which will remain intact without any international interference," he added.

Commenting on the Left parties' concerns, who maintained their stance that they would not let the operationalisation of the US-India nuclear deal without the UPA-Left Committee's approval, he said there are "doubts and misgivings in many minds" about the agreement.

Speaking on the issue of price rise, Dr. Singh said that the Centre has reiterated on many occasions that the soaring price of the essential commodities were due to imbalance in demand-supply chains and trends in the international market.

"I am aware that many of you are concerned about the prices of certain essential commodities. To some extent, we will get some relief from the beneficial effects of our initiatives to increase agricultural output," he said.

"However, we must keep in mind that global prices of basic food commodities have seen a rapid rise for a variety of factors. We do not have any control of these factors," he added.

On the other hand, he said that the Centre is working in providing food items to the poor at affordable cost.

"Global prices of foodgrains, pulses and edible oil have seen a sharp rise. However, it has been our endeavour to shield the poor and vulnerable sections from the effects of this rise and we have been quite successful in this regard," Singh said.

Praising the government's efforts to keep inflation under control in the range of 3-4 percent, he said, "When our government came into office, the prices of crude oil was about 35 dollar a barrel. It has now reached almost 100 dollar per barrel."

Reiterating the UPA government's policies for the upliftment of the country, Dr. Singh said that the main achievement of the ruling alliance has been that economic growth has averaged around nine percent per annum.

"This growth rate is significant because in the absence of economic growth, we would not be able to deliver on our promises on all other fronts," he added.

Singh praised Finance Minister P Chidambaram for steering the economy towards high growth. (ANI)