As he celebrates the nine-day Durga Puja, Mukherjee humoured visiting journalists saying economic growth and low inflation were in his prayers.
While doing whatever is humanly possible to tame inflation, finance minister Pranab Mukherjee invoked goddess Durga to check rising prices and help in double-digit economic growth.
As he celebrates the nine-day Durga Puja, a Hindu festival that marks the victory of good over evil, in his ancestral home in Kirnahar, Mukherjee humoured visiting journalists saying economic growth and low inflation were in his prayers.
"My first prayer to Maa Durga is that the country should witness double digit GDP growth at least 10-11% during my tenure," Mukherjee told reporters.
The minister further said that he also prayed for low inflation as the rising prices hit poor the most.
While inflation inched up marginally to 8.62% during September, food inflation moved up to 16.37% for the week ended October 2.
The government and RBI has been taking fiscal and monetary steps to rein in inflation even while providing stimulus to industry to boost growth.
India's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth, which slowed to 6.7% in 2008-09 from over 9% in the previous three years owing to the global financial crisis, has shown signs of recovery.
The economic growth was 7.4% in 2009-10 and is estimated to clock 8.5% in the current fiscal.
On International Monetary Fund's growth estimate of 9% in 2010, Mukherjee said he would prefer to be conservative. "It would be over 8.5 per cent in 2010-11", he added.
Besides inflation and growth, Mukherjee also sought Maa Durga's blessings for ending the global economic uncertainty.
The financial meltdown caused by sub-prime crisis in the US hit the whole world including India. As the economic recovery is not strong enough, some economic experts are even talking about "double dip", meaning that global economy could slip into second round of crisis.
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