Budget 2011: Pranab Mukherjee to interact with Congress leaders on Tuesday

NEW DELHI: As rising prices and interest rates worry the common man ahead of the Union Budget 2011-12, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee will be visiting the AICC headquarters on Tuesday for consultations with party leaders on the exercise.

The Finance Minister, who has interacted with several interest groups including the industry so far, will be seeking suggestions from Congress leaders on how to make the Budget to be presented on Feb 28, an instrument to take forward the party's policies and programmes.

Since the Congress came to power at the Centre via the UPA mode in 2004, Finance Ministers have been interacting with party leaders ahead of the Budget.

Experts say inflation, Current Account Deficit, pressure for lowering down the import duty, providing level playing field to the domestic industries and increasing the government revenue are some of the problems being faced by the government ahead of the Budgetary exercise.

A section of the ruling party, however, believes that these were only "proforma" consultations given the fact that the preparation of Budget has reached an advanced stage by this time.

Budget session of Parliament commencing on Feb 21 is being held at a time when there is a deadlock between the Government and the opposition over the issue of JPC to probe the 2G scam.

Mukherjee, who is also the Leader of the Lok Sabha, has last week held a meeting with all political parties to resolve the stalemate and expected to have further consultations with them this week to ensure that the three month long session will be a smooth affair unlike the winter session which was a washout following the deadlock.