NEW DELHI: Ridiculing the official back-series estimates for India’s
GDP as a “puzzle”, former union finance minister P Chidambaram on Friday wondered how growth during the Narendra Modi government is pegged higher when all other economic parameters pointed downwards.
Participating in an interactive programme “Is India Being Redefined” here, the Congress veteran also questioned why former Chief Economic Adviser
Arvind Subramanian kept a studied silence on demonetisation, which Chidambaram said was an “utterly foolish decision”.
“Even after this redefinition, the pattern of growth and decline remain exactly the same just that entire curve has moved down a jot. The pattern is the best years of India's growth were 2004 to 2014. They cannot erase the fact. If the GDP growth in last 4 years is better than UPA years, then why is investment down by almost 5-6 percentage points,” asked Chidambaram.
“Why our exports not crossing $315-billion mark registered in March 2014? Why is credit growth sluggish and credit growth to industry barely 1.4 per cent. Why no jobs, why so much farm distress and maximum number of farmers suicides in the last 4 years," he said about the back-series estimates for India's GDP released on Wednesday.
The new estimates put the average growth during the UPA regime down from previous estimates while growth during the NDA period is pegged higher than during UPA.
“If every other indicator points towards south how is your GDP alone pointing north? When every indicator is pointing down, how can the GDP go up. This puzzle has to be solved by somebody, may be the
NITI Aayog can,” he said.