NEW DELHI: The new government will focus on reviving growth and curbing "unacceptably" high inflation, lift bureaucrats' morale and make minorities "equal partners" in India's progress, PresidentPranab Mukherjee has said as he spelt out the priorities of the Narendra Modi-led administration in the months ahead.

In his customary address to newly elected lawmakers in Parliament, Mukherjee, reading out the government's plans, said the economy was passing through an "extremely difficult phase" and fixing it was the top priority.

"Putting the Indian economy back on track is paramount for my government," he said, as he listed reining in inflation, reigniting the investment cycle, accelerating job creation and restoring the confidence of domestic and international community as among the ways to achieve it.

The Indian economy, once the toast of investors around the world impressed by its near double-digit growth rates, has struggled in recent years. Growth rates have slumped to near-5 per cent — a decade low, tax collections are trailing targets, and high inflation and consequently high interest rates have hit investment growth.

Saying inflation "continues to be at an unacceptable level", Mukherjee said containing food inflation will be the "topmost priority" for the government, which plans to achieve it by improving the supply side of various agro and agro-based products and taking steps to prevent hoarding and black-marketing. The government, he said, would also create a policy environment that is predictable, transparent and fair.

"It will embark on rationalisation and simplification of the tax regime to make it non-adversarial and conducive to investment, enterprise and growth," he said, adding that efforts would be made to introduce the goods & services tax (GST) together with reforms to make doing business easier. "My government will follow a policy of encouraging investments, including through FDI; which will be allowed in sectors that help create jobs and assets."

The President's address to the 16th Lok Sabha on Monday predictably focused on the government's economic agenda, not least because fixing the economy was the central plank of the Modi-led BJP's campaign.

Rising frustration among people with the state of the economy was in large parts responsible for Congress' drubbing to its worst ever electoral performance and BJP's best ever showing of a simple majority.

Describing the just-concluded Lok Sabha polls as an "election of hope" in which a single party had won a majority after nearly 30 years, Mukherjee also announced the government's intention to go in for an ambitious infrastructure development programme that, over the next decade, will modernise the railways, build more highways and urbanise vast tracts of India.

Mukherjee, a Congressman for decades before he became President in 2012, announced the government's plans for a 'Diamond Quadrilateral' project of highspeed trains and the building of 100 world-class cities, both key items in Modi's pre-election economic vision.

The government also plans to set up IITs and IIMs in every state and inter-link rivers where possible to fight drought and flood conditions.

Further, in line with Modi's oftrepeated assertion of providing a regime that offered "minimum government but maximum governance", the administration, Mukherjee said, will shift its focus from "poverty alleviation" to "poverty elimination".

Saying sections of minority communities continue to suffer from poverty even after decades of Independence, the government promised to make all minorities "equal partners in India's progress", in the process hoping to allay concerns, especially among Muslims, that a Modi-led administration was hostile to them.

"The government will especially strengthen measures to spread modern and technical education among minority communities and a National Madrassa Modernisation Programme will be initiated," the President said of the government's plans.

The Modi government also vows to provide 33 per cent reservation to women in Parliament and state assemblies and work to strengthen the criminal justice system to provide security to them, Mukherjee said. On the foreign policy front, the Modi government intends to further strengthen relations with China and Japan as well as the US.

In the neighbourhood, India would work towards better relations with SAARC nations, but at the same time warned that the country will "never shy away from raising issues of concern at bilateral levels" with other countries.