New Delhi: Union Minister Anurag Thakur on Wednesday (June 2) hit back a former Finance Minister P Chidambaram over his criticism of the central government over economic slowdown.
He asserted that the Indian economy is resilient and will rebound in the times ahead and that the Congress leaders’ approach was clueless.
“Indian economy is resilient and will rebound in the times ahead based on consistent reforms that have ensured strong fundamentals through these difficult times. I am not surprised that the Former Finance Minister chose to ignore hard data and instead went ahead with ‘whataboutery - the congress leadership has embodied this clueless approach over the years,” Anurag Thakur, MoS of Finance & Corporate Affairs said in a statement.
“Consistent reforms and strong fundamentals have ensured India had a swift rebound from a contraction of 24.4 % in the 1st quarter of FY 2020-21 to a growth of 1.6 per cent in the 4th quarter of FY 2020-21,” he added.
On the issue of the gloomy forecast portrayed by Chidambaram, Thakur said, “While you doubt the resilience of Indian entrepreneurs, small businesses, traders and MSMEs to revive themselves; various international agencies project India to grow by 12.5% in FY 2021-22 making us the only major economy to have a projected double-digit growth.”
Thakur further questioned the former finance minister saying, “Is the Indian economy an island in isolation; have other major economies not faced a GDP contraction? Are you not aware that France, Germany, Italy, UK contracted by 8.2%, 4.9%, 8.9% and 9.9% respectively? Canada, Russia, South Africa, USA too have seen contraction in their GDP in the past year. Despite the disruptions in the globalised world, India has remained resilient.”
A day after GDP shrunk by 7.3% in FY20-21, Chidambaram had suggested the government to borrow money or print notes and to spend aggressively without worrying about the fiscal deficit.
“This is not the time to worry about the fiscal deficit. So what if the deficit widens to 6.5%? We can’t lose another year like we lost the last year. But the way the government is reacting, we are going to lose another year. My advice to the government is to act boldly and spend. Borrow or print money and spend,” he had said.
