CHIDAMBARAM QUESTIONS GROWTH RATE UNDER NDA GOVT

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 said 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.

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

“India achieved an average growth of 7.5% 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.

Chidambaram had attacked the NDA government in the Rajya Sabha on Thursday, posed 12 questions to the government on budget, saying it would ramp up fiscal deficit.

“Budget 2018-19 has worsened the fiscal deficit. Shall we tell the people, NDA government believes that we must tax the hard-working middle class rather than the rich corporates?” he said in the Rajya Sabha.

Later, in a series of tweets, the former finance minister also said the government has projected that gross tax revenue will grow by 16.7% when nominal GDP growth will be 11.5%.

He wanted to know whether the tax growth rate of 16.7% was “realistic or ambitious or aggressive.”

NEWDELHI: