London: After a resounding victory in the Assembly polls, Finance Minister Jaswant Singh virtually unveiled the reform measures in the Budget, saying second green revolution needed to be ushered in, apart from giving renewed thrust to disinvestment, labour and fiscal reforms.

"We need a second green revolution... there are three areas of priority; to improve value addition, to increase food processing and to bring rural wastelands into productivity," Singh said in an interview to London-based journalists from leading economic daily 'Financial Times'.

Other priorities included reducing fiscal deficit and debt burden of State Governments, Singh said listing changes to restrictive labour laws and a continuation of privatisation programme as other potential areas of reforms.

Declining to go into specifics of the reform measures in the pipeline, Singh said fiscal consolidation was crucial for the country to move on to higher growth path of over seven per cent.

The combined fiscal deficit of Central and State Governments was almost 11 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP), Singh said, stressing "India stands on the verge of explosive economic growth. But fiscal reform is essential."

Singh was candid in saying that there were difficulties in implementing reforms, particularly because of the mindset of bureaucracy, which suffered from "culture of conservatism".

"There is a big gap between policy and implementations. Unless I say these things (publicly) it will never change," he said.

Admitting that more needed to be done to boost foreign direct investment (FDI), the Finance Minister said India needed to simplify approval procedures to raise FDI, which was at present a fraction of what China gets.

"It is easier to take money out of India than into India simply because of the baggage of laws and regulations that I have inherited. We need to change this."

Singh did not subscribe to the view that India's economic growth model was largely due to booming information technology and outsourcing business.

"Software has become a showpiece. But India's GDP growth (expected to cross seven per cent due to good monsoon this year) is not dependent on it (IT). India has the largest cultivated arable landmass of any country of the world. I want to develop this huge asset," he said.

On the backlash abroad, particularly in US to the growing outsourcing industry in the country, Singh said number of states in United States are threatening to restrict public sector contracts to local corporates.

But "Market forces will reassert themselves. Software exports will continue to grow... I do not think this should be the cause for worry," he said.

PTI