New Delhi: Planning Commission on October 29 warned that lack of political consensus between the Centre and states on pushing forward reforms would hit the country hard and also come in the way of achieving the ambitious 8 per cent economic growth target.

"There has to be a consensus among political parties, Centre and state governments on taking hard economic decisions. There could be some problems in this. But this is must," deputy chairman of the Planning Commission K C Pant said after Cabinet approved the 10th five year plan.

Pointing to the dismal performance of the power sector in the successive Plans, Pant said some of the states, which had increased power tariff, had retracted from their decision and such a tendency was bound to affect the development of this crucial sector.

He, however, dismissed the suggestions that 8 per cent growth target was too high in the wake of Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) projections that economy would grow by 5 to 5.5 per cent during the current financial year and said, "we have achieved 5.5 per cent growth in the last two years despite low performance of industry and agriculture sectors.

"What if agriculture sector improves? We can then see an economic growth of 7.5 per cent to 8 per cent annually," Pant said.

PTI