Government will use food stocks to soften prices: Montek

New Delhi, March 19 (IANS) Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia Thursday said food inflation continues to be matter of worry and the government would use food stocks to soften prices when required.

"We will use food stocks, we have to soften food prices as far as possible," he said on the sidelines of the 20th Asian Corporate Conference here.

Ahluwalia said he expected a good Rabi (winter) crop this season.

Cheaper vegetables and pulses pulled down food inflation to a four-month low of 16.30 per cent in the first week of March.

He also said a full Planning Commission meeting chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will be held on March 23 for a mid-term review and assessment of the economic situation in the country.

Ahluwalia refrained from commenting on the monetary action the Reserve Bank of India may take in its April policy review.

"India has a vibrant economy. The economy will expand 8.5 percent in 2010-11 and 9 percent the year after. This is the thinking in the Planning Commission," he said.

The government has said India will grow at 7.2 percent this year.

He disagreed with the International Monetary Fund's perception of Indian growth. "IMF has underpredicted India's growth next fiscal at 7 percent earlier and revised now at 8 percent," he said.