Amid fears of slowdown in the global economy resurfacing, the Plan panel today said

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it will not be easy to achieve 9% growth during the 12th Plan (2012-17).

"...9% growth target for the 12th Plan is not going to be easy. What will be easy is somewhere around 7-7.5%", Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia said, while addressing the annual summit of the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM).

He further said, "We should start with 7% growth and gradually go up to 9% over the 5 year period...We should not be worried by short-term problems".

Ahluwalia said that though the global economic scenario looks depressing at the moment, the situation may improve over the next few months.

"I think there is a tendency to be over-impressed with what happened in last three months," he said.

At the meeting of the full Planning Commission, chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on August 20, which approved the Approach Paper for the 12th Plan, the target for growth during the five-year period was set at 9%.

However, Singh had said on the occasion that economic growth could go up to 9.2% in 2012-17.

The Planning Commission had also said that it will revisit the growth target for the 12th Plan next year.

The 9% growth target was also initially set for the ongoing 11th Plan. However, it was later scaled down to 8.2% on account of the global economic downturn of 2008-09.

India was growing by over 9% before the global financial crisis in 2008 pulled down the economic growth to 6.8% in 2008-09.

While the government expects economic growth to be around 8.5% this fiscal, the Reserve Bank has projected the economy to expand by 8%. The GDP growth in the last fiscal was 8.5%.