New Delhi: Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee Wednesday told the Rajya Sabha that the result of the stimulus measures have started showing results with recovery in many sectors.

"The stimulus measures have started yielding results and I must say it is visible but it is slow," the minister said in his reply during the debate on the national budget in the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of the parliament.

According to him, the four stimulus packages have generated about Rs 2.18 lakh crore.

Mukherjee said the high borrowings of the government and large fiscal deficit were inevitable in the national budget given the need to push economic growth and allocate more funds for welfare programmes.

The finance minister has been criticized for high government borrowings, pegged at Rs.391,000 crore and the resultant fiscal deficit. To counter this, he said : "The Reserve Bank of India had managed government's borrowing efficiently in the past."

The minister also called for an urgent need to return to high growth in short time and stressed on generating internal demand besides return to fiscal consolidation at the earliest.

He said cement production increased by over 13 percent, automobile sales rose 17.4 percent, and the steel sector registered a 13 percent growth last month.

However, Mukherjee said, exports fell for the ninth consecutive month in June.

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