Finance Minister P Chidambaram said on Tuesday the government will take every measure to moderate the high inflation rate but the long term remedy is correcting the demand-supply mismatch in foodgrains.

"I am confident that RBI's monetary steps and government's fiscal measures will moderate inflation," he said replying to supplementaries during Question Hour in the Rajya Sabha.

Chidambaram said the current high rate of inflation has been triggered by hardening of commodity prices particularly of metals and crude oil, supply-demand mismatch -- first in sugar, then in wheat and now in pulses, increase in money supply due to capital inflow and increase in demand as a result of rise in public expenditure.

The average inflation rate during 2006-07 fiscal was 5.4 per cent, he said. In three out of six years of the previous NDA regime, inflation was more than 5.4 per cent.

"(High) inflation (rate) is not a phenomenon under the UPA government," he said, adding "The 5.4 per cent is not acceptable. It needs to be moderated."

The long-term solution to bring down inflation is to correct the supply-demand mismatch created mainly due to stagnation in production of wheat, paddy and pulses, he said. The finance minister said during the past nine years, inflation has been in highs and lows.

However, the difference in inflation rates during the National Democratic Alliance and the United Progressive Alliance regime is the economic growth factor, he said adding average growth during the NDA rule was 5.8 per cent while it was 8.6 per cent during three years of the UPA rule.