Nirmala Sitharaman presents White Paper in Parliament
According to the Center’s white paper on the economy, which it presented to Parliament on Thursday, the UPA government took over a robust economy that was ready for further reforms but rendered it non-performing in its ten years in office. Though they abandoned the 1991 reforms after taking power in 2004, the UPA leadership rarely fails to claim credit for them, it was said. According to the Center, the UPA government seriously damaged the macroeconomic underpinnings in its attempt to continue strong economic growth after the 2008 global financial crisis.
24 pages to describe the shortcomings of UPA
The white paper’s first 24 pages described the UPA government’s economic shortcomings and enumerated the numerous corruptions that occurred during those ten years, including those involving the Commonwealth Games, 2G Telecom, Saradha Chit Fund, INX Media, Antrix Devas, and others. The white paper expanded on the actions taken by the BJP government to improve the economy starting on page 25.
“When our government assumed office, the economy was on a road to nowhere exhibiting tell-tale signs of deep distress emanating from multiple ‘wrong turns’ in economic policy….As soon as our government took over in 2014, we recognized the urgent need to revamp and overhaul systems and processes, to help India advance on the path of development while also bolstering its macroeconomic foundations,” it said.
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Amrit Kaal for India
“The Amrit Kaal has just begun and our destination is “India a developed nation by 2047″. It is our Kartavya Kaal,” the white paper said.
The BJP government’s reforms have caused the Indian economy to go from being among the weakest five to among the strongest five in just over ten years. “The rise of the Indian economy in the last ten years despite unprecedented obstacles of external origin (e.g. pandemic, geopolitical disturbances, etc.) is manifest in the trajectory of its GDP ranking. From being the 10th largest in 2014, India has surpassed many giants to become the fifth largest economy in 2023 (but for the pandemic in 2020, we would have become the 5th largest at least two years earlier) and is slated to become the third largest by 2027 as per IMF projections,” it said.
“The UPA Government failed miserably to facilitate economic activities. Instead the UPA Government created hurdles that held back economy. It basked in the after-glory of the lagged effects of the reforms of the Vajpayee-led NDA government and benign global conditions and proceeded to exploit the resultant fast economic growth for narrow political purposes without much concern for long-term economic consequences. The result was a mountain of bad loans, a high fiscal deficit despite much of it being hidden, a high current account deficit, double-digit inflation for five years which hit the pockets of many Indians and membership of the club of “Fragile Five” in 2013. They not only failed to impart dynamism into the economy but also robbed the economy of it such that our industrialists went on record stating that they would rather invest abroad than in India. To drive investors away is easy but to win them back is hard. The UPA government also demonstrated that it is easier to hurt the economy than it is to help it. They inherited a healthy economy and bequeathed an enfeebled one to us. We have restored its vitality. The box below captures the difference we could make in the last ten years and we hope to build on it in the next twenty-five years,” Centre’s white paper said.
