Bangalore: Former Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram on July 26 said the country might have to "unlearn some of the lessons" learnt following the 1991 liberalisation experience and write new prescriptions for economic problems.

"Since 1991, we learnt many lessons. We may now have to unlearn some of these lessons and learn new lessons," he told a meeting of the Greater Mysore Chamber of Industry (GMCI) on the occasion of its silver jubilee.

"The crisis of 1991 is not the crisis of 2003," he said.

Chidambaram said wasteful expenditure, indiscriminate borrowing, a regime of licence and permit raj, oppressive bureaucracy, handcuffed trade and industry and a path of unsustainable development brought about the 1991 crisis.

But now, he said, the Union government did not indulge in indiscriminate borrowing at least from external sources, was conscious of curbing wasteful expenditure, licence-permit raj was more or less dismantled and bureaucracy was more sensitive to industry and trade.

With all this, the country ought to be on way to progress and growth "but we are not", he said, noting that the gross democratic product (GDP) growth had been less than five per cent in three of the last five years, barring 6 per cent in one year and 5 in another.

Growth could not be measured only in terms of GDP and it encompassed human development also, he said. But looking at growth even in a narrow sense, the last five years had been "another five years of failure", he said.

Not many states had grown more than five per cent and "if we take a step back and look at what we are, whatever may appear to have been the right thing in 1991 may not be right in 2003", he said.

PTI