India’s new Congress-led government has laid out plans for a wave of market-oriented economic reforms and a simultaneous push to improve the welfare of the poor – a tough balancing act that could strain the capacity of the bloated, sluggish state.

The outline of the policy priorities came on Friday in an address by President Pratibha Patil, India’s largely ceremonial head of state, to the newly installed parliament chosen in last month’s elections that gave Congress a much enhanced public mandate.