All-Round Mismanagement By Modi Govt Responsible For ¡®This Man-Made Crisis¡¯, Says Manmohan Singh
He went on to add that farmers in India are not receiving adequate prices for their produce and rural incomes have declined.
Maintaining that India is in the midst of serious economic crisis with potential to impact the lives of lakhs of citizens, former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Sunday blamed the "all-round mismanagement" by the Modi government for this economic slowdown and has asserted in a hard-hitting statement that the government must put aside vendetta politics to overcome what he called ¡°this man-made crisis¡±.
¡°The state of the economy today is deeply worrying. The last quarter¡¯s GDP growth rate of 5% signals that we are in the midst of a prolonged slowdown. India has the potential to grow at a much faster rate but all-round mismanagement by the Modi government has resulted in this slowdown,¡± said Singh, who was also the first prime minister since Jawaharlal Nehru to be re-elected after completing a full five-year term.
Our economy has not recovered from the man made blunders of demonetisation & a hastily implemented GST... I urge the govt to put aside vendetta politics & reach out to all sane voices to steer our economy out of this crisis: Former PM Dr Manmohan Singh #DrSinghOnEconomicCrisis pic.twitter.com/83cBJWHay9
¡ª Congress (@INCIndia) September 1, 2019
He said that India¡¯s youth, farmers and farm-workers, entrepreneurs and the marginalised sections deserve better and that the country cannot afford to continue down this path. Therefore, he urged the government to put aside vendetta politics, and reach out to all sane voices and thinking minds, to steer our economy out of this man-made crisis.
Born in Gah (now in Punjab, Pakistan), Singh's family migrated to India during its partition in 1947. After obtaining his doctorate in economics from Oxford, Singh worked for the United Nations during 1966¨C69.
¡°It is particularly distressing that the manufacturing sector¡¯s growth is tottering at 0.6%. This makes it very clear that our economy has not yet recovered from the man-made blunders of demonetisation and a hastily implemented GST,¡± he said, targetting the two ambitious projects of the Modi government.
Referring to the increasing unemployment rate, Dr Singh said: ¡°The Modi government¡¯s policies are resulting in massive job-less growth. More than 3.5 lakh jobs have been lost in the automobile sector alone. There will similarly be large scale job losses in the informal sector, hurting our most vulnerable workers,¡± he said.
He went on to add that farmers in India are not receiving adequate prices for their produce and rural incomes have declined.
He further cast aspersions over the monetary surplus of Rs 1.76 lakh crores that have been transferred by the RBI to the Centre, saying that resilience of the central bank will be tested after the record transfer of money.
He also said that the credibility of government data and the announcements in this year¡¯s budget have shaken the confidence of foreign investors.
He also raised concerns at the slowdown in the manufacturing sector, which grew at only 0.6 per cent in Q1 as compared to 12 per cent in the same quarter in the previous year.
