Chidambaram takes swipe at NDA govt, says economy downward

NEW DELHI: Congress leader P Chidambaram on Saturday took a swipe at the NDA government for claiming that the growth rate was better in its rule, saying it was lower than UPA's 10 years average and was going downward.

In multiple tweets, Chidambaram said the World Bank's former chief economist Kaushik Basu had stated that India's growth rate was lower than the 30-year average but Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said the growth rate was better.

"What is the average of 4 years of NDA? It is 7.3 under new methodology and lower than UPA's 10 year average. What is the direction of NDA's growth rate? Investments? Savings? Credit growth? All downward," he claimed.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in his Budget 2018-19 speech said that Indian economy had performed very well since the NDA government took over in May, 2014.

"India achieved an average growth of 7.5 per cent in first three years of our government. Indian economy is now 2.5 trillion dollar economy - seventh largest in the world," he had said.

Jaitley said the government had undertaken several structural reforms--from GST and the Insolvency Code to linking subsidies with Aadhaar, something that he accused the previous UPA-led government of abandoning.

"The difference between UPA and NDA is that we know how to bite the bullet when decisions have to be taken," he had said.