Positive impact of growth measures to be seen in long term: FM Arun Jaitley
ET Bureau|
Updated: Jan 05, 2018, 07.44 AM IST
Arun Jaitley on Thursday said despite global slowdown and the UPA leaving India among the "Fragile Five" nations in 2014, the Modi government not only undertook big structural reforms but also made it the fastest-growing economy for three consecutive years.
In his reply to the short-duration discussion in the Rajya Sabha on the state of the economy, Jaitley said some of the structural reforms undertaken by the government were attempted by the previous dispensation too, but it failed to do so because of several reasons. He lamented that Congress has now changed its stand on these reforms.
Conceding that there are challenges before the economy, Jaitley said Indian economy has been impacted by the slowdown in the global economy. When there is a boom in the global economy India also benefits as had happened in 2003, he added.
He alleged UPA had left the economy in a bad shape. "There was a fiscal deficit slippage. Today there are only remarks of marginal slippage, but during your time (UPA) there was a major slippage. The slippage was such that the current account deficit was more than 4.5% and fiscal deficit nearly touched 6%," Jaitley said.
He said the NDA government has worked consistently in the last three years to bring down the fiscal deficit through fiscal prudence and discipline. In the last three years, there has been a global slowdown and it is only this year there is expectation that it will grow at 3.6%. Moreover, India faced two years of drought.
"For the first time, for three years India has been the fastest-growing economy in the world. And even in the fourth year, the World Bank has said that it will be the secondfastest by 0.1%. You (UPA) left the country among the Fragile Five. If there has been an upgrade from Fragile Five, some good work must have been done. You left India at 142 rank. Today, after three years, it stands at 100," the FM said.
On GST, Jaitley said there would have been some issues for the first one-to-three months but in the medium and long term, the economy will benefit. "Structural reforms have a price, it bottoms itself out and then the curve begins to move up and the signs of that are beginning to come."
Jaitley said the government has managed to keep inflation within 4%. "It is this country's strength that even at 7-8% growth, we are not satisfied. We aspire for more. Among the many steps we took, we had to pay the price for some in the short term, but I can assure you that in the medium and long term they will have an impact and the coming generations will remember that a new history in India's economy was written."
Earlier in the day, participating in the discussion, Congress' Anand Sharma asked Jaitley to release the GDP numbers of the last 10 years as per the old as well as the new series, to provide a comparison on the performance of the economy during the tenure of both NDA as well as the UPA regimes.
In his reply to the short-duration discussion in the Rajya Sabha on the state of the economy, Jaitley said some of the structural reforms undertaken by the government were attempted by the previous dispensation too, but it failed to do so because of several reasons. He lamented that Congress has now changed its stand on these reforms.
Conceding that there are challenges before the economy, Jaitley said Indian economy has been impacted by the slowdown in the global economy. When there is a boom in the global economy India also benefits as had happened in 2003, he added.
He alleged UPA had left the economy in a bad shape. "There was a fiscal deficit slippage. Today there are only remarks of marginal slippage, but during your time (UPA) there was a major slippage. The slippage was such that the current account deficit was more than 4.5% and fiscal deficit nearly touched 6%," Jaitley said.
He said the NDA government has worked consistently in the last three years to bring down the fiscal deficit through fiscal prudence and discipline. In the last three years, there has been a global slowdown and it is only this year there is expectation that it will grow at 3.6%. Moreover, India faced two years of drought.
"For the first time, for three years India has been the fastest-growing economy in the world. And even in the fourth year, the World Bank has said that it will be the secondfastest by 0.1%. You (UPA) left the country among the Fragile Five. If there has been an upgrade from Fragile Five, some good work must have been done. You left India at 142 rank. Today, after three years, it stands at 100," the FM said.
On GST, Jaitley said there would have been some issues for the first one-to-three months but in the medium and long term, the economy will benefit. "Structural reforms have a price, it bottoms itself out and then the curve begins to move up and the signs of that are beginning to come."
Jaitley said the government has managed to keep inflation within 4%. "It is this country's strength that even at 7-8% growth, we are not satisfied. We aspire for more. Among the many steps we took, we had to pay the price for some in the short term, but I can assure you that in the medium and long term they will have an impact and the coming generations will remember that a new history in India's economy was written."
Earlier in the day, participating in the discussion, Congress' Anand Sharma asked Jaitley to release the GDP numbers of the last 10 years as per the old as well as the new series, to provide a comparison on the performance of the economy during the tenure of both NDA as well as the UPA regimes.
