Note ban slowed GDP: Manmohan
Job creation has been hit hard, says Manmohan
New Delhi: Former PM Manmohan Singh hit out at the Centre over its demonetisation move and said that it slowed India’s economic growth as evident from the latest GDP numbers. “Private sector investment has collapsed and the economy is running on just one engine of public spending,” he said.
Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh hit out at the government over demonetisation, at the Congress Working Committee meeting. Dr Singh said that India’s economic growth has slowed down as visible by the GDP numbers for the fourth quarter. He further added the slowdown has primarily been driven by the notebandi announcement by the government in November 2016. He further added that GVA (Gross Value Added) growth of the industry has fallen from 10.7 per cent in March 2016 to 3.8 per cent in March 2017, a decline of nearly seven percentage points of growth.
“Private sector investment has collapsed and the economy is running on just one engine of public spending,” Dr Singh said.
Taking a dig at the government, the former Prime Minister said that contrary to the promises
Private sector investment has collapsed and the economy is running on just one engine of public spending Manmohan
Singh, Former PM
made by the BJP, job creation has been hit hard. He said that the jobs have become very hard to come by for the youth, the construction industry which is one of the largest employment generators has suffered a contraction. This clearly means loss of millions of jobs for the nation’s workforce.
Interestingly, intervening in the discussion in Rajya Sabha on demonetisation, Dr Singh had indicated that demonetisation could cost the GDP a downfall of almost 2 per cent. The Congress now claims that they had already warned the government of the misstep.
The Congress has been critical of the NDA government’s handling of the economy.