In her first address to the joint sitting in the new Parliament building, President Droupadi Murmu on Wednesday said India's inflation rate was in double digits but now it is under 4 per cent.
The President entered the new Parliament House with the 'sengol' being carried in front of her. In her address to the joint sitting of the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha ahead of the Budget session, Murmu said the Indian economy used to be among the 'fragile five' but was now moving in the right direction and at the right pace.
She pointed out that this was due to several reforms undertaken by the government in the last 10 years. "According to the NITI Aayog, in the 10-year rule of my government, nearly 25 crore people have come out of poverty," she said.
"In the last ten years, the country has witnessed the completion of such projects for which the people had waited for decades. There was the desire for building the Ram Mandir for centuries and today it has become a reality," she said.
The President also congratulated Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the passage of the women's reservation bill.
Besides Modi, Union ministers Amit Shah, Piyush Goyal and Nitin Gadkari, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and Congress parliamentary party chief Sonia Gandhi were also seated in the front row.
-- with inputs from PTI
