Next month's Union Budget will focus on maintaining high growth and give 'relief' to sectors under 'stress' such as those affected by the rupee appreciation, said Finance Minister P Chidambaram.

In the minister's book there is no such thing as an 'election budget' although he acknowledges that his next budgetary exercise will be the last 'full budget' of the UPA government. If elections are held on time before May, 2009 then there will be a vote-on-account next year.

As he prepares his fifth consecutive Budget, Chidambaram says he has no worries other than about some sectors under "stress" which he would address.

Chidambaram admits that delivery of promised goods and services has not been satisfactory. But he is of the view that there is enough time for improvement in this area.

"Delivery has not been satisfactory. Sixteen months (time till the scheduled Lok Sabha election) is enough time to improve the delivery of goods and services."

Confident of a 9 per cent economic growth in the current fiscal, Chidambaram told PTI that "the thrust of the budget (2008-09) will be to maintain high growth and ensure that the growth process endorses and includes larger and larger sections of the people."

Growth, he emphasised, is an imperative.  "Inclusive growth is what we must work for. It requires hard work. It requires better governance.  It requires delivery of goods and services."

Chidambaram said, "there is no sector which is worrying me.  There are some sectors, which are under stress. For example, one reason the rupee appreciation has caused some stress to some sectors.  We will address these causes to the extent possible and give them some relief."

His remarks assume significance against the backdrop of the steady rise in the value of the rupee in the last one year touching up to Rs 45 against US dollar in July last year. The commerce ministry estimates that the appreciation could lead to a loss of Rs 53,000 crore (Rs 530 billion) to exporters in 2007-08.

Otherwise, the minister felt, all sectors were doing reasonably well in terms of production.  "If there is a slow-down in demand in some sectors like housing and real estate, that is a result of a conscious policy to moderate the demand in these sectors.

Refusing to accept that the next Budget will be an election-budget, the minister said he did not think that Budget can decide elections.

"What decides elections are our capacity to deliver what you say.  Budgets only give outlays and budgets don't ensure outcomes. Between outlays and outcomes there is something called governance and delivery.

"We must deliver on the kilometres we promised, on the villages that we promised electricity and water, on the investments that we say will be made on the units of electricity will be generated," he said.

Chidambaram said budgets certainly raise expectations and we support these expectations with financial outlays.  It is the outcome of the budget that will be decided whether we had delivered or not.

Chidambaram said in the last three and half years the government has delivered on a number of fronts.  "We had delivered on rural employment, education, rural health care, roads, generation of electricity and transport and communications."

Reviewing the performance of the economy in the year that just ended, he predicted a nine per cent growth of the Indian economy in the current fiscal and dismissed fears that a global depression may affect India.

He said the challenges in the new year were the external financial sector and the food front domestically.

"It has been a good year for the economy despite uncertainty in the external world and some internal difficulties, especially on the food front. The year will return a rate of growth of 9 per cent," Chidambaram said.

In the last four years of the UPA government, the economy has clocked an average 8.6 per cent growth and maintained that a five-year average of 8.6 per cent "is by all means an impressive record".

However, the finance minister emphasised that he was not minimising the challenges ahead.

"The external sector remains uncertain. In fact, the uncertainty may have deepened in the last few months because of unravelling crisis in several segments of the financial sector.

"Domestically on the food front we keep our fingers crossed on rice procurement, wheat production and procurement. If all these turn out to be favourable then I think the pressures will ease.  There is no question of relaxing the vigil on the food front because food is the most important driver of prices in India," he said.

Asked about fears of a global depression affecting the Indian economy, Chidambaram said the most pessimistic outlook has projected a growth of 4.5 per cent to 4.7 per cent in 2008 in world output.  "We should not be affected by the slight dip in the output."

About the sub-prime crisis in the US economy, he dismissed any prospects of that hitting the Indian economy.

"The sub-prime crisis does not have a  first order impact on India because Indian banks and financial institutions are not exposed to the sub-prime market."

The prime minister had recently only said that the sub-prime crisis could have a slow-down impact on other economies, which could have an impact, he said in reply to a question.

On the food front, the minister said the government needs to address some structural bottlenecks and the inefficiencies in the system.

"There are gross inefficiencies in the public distribution system in the manner in which we distribute fertiliser subsidies and products such as kerosene and LPG.

Some of the inefficiencies are well-known like diversion of items like kerosene in PDS and pilferage.  We need to plug the wastages and leakage."

Talking about inflation, he said the issue was really the food prices.  "All other prices are under control. There have been occasional flare-ups.  Onion prices go up one day and come down another day. Edible oil goes up one day and comes down the other.