IMF cuts India’s growth forecast: Cong to Jaitley

The Congress on Monday punctured Finance Minister Arun Jaitley’s boast in a blog, telling him that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) had itself lowered India’s growth projection only last month.

In a strong rebuttal to Jaitley comparing what IMF had said about India in 2014 and now in 2018, Congress chief spokesman Randeep Singh Surjewala reminded that the Congress-led UPA I and II governments had delivered the highest decadal growth of 8.13% at factor cost since Independence.

In contrast, under the Modi government, the GDP growth in 2017-18 is just 6.7%, which is a 4-year low, he said.

He said the finance minister should know that the Modi government had inherited an economy that was on the upswing.

“But due to BJP’s ad hoc and myopic economic policies – demonetisation, flawed implementation of GST and tax terrorism that momentum was lost. There are no jobs, investment low, reforms slowed down.”

Pointing out that the investment is in doldrums and no amount of whitewashing/blog writing can increase that, Surjewala said the gross fixed capital formation as a percent of GDP was 34.3% in 2011-12. "Even in 2013-14 it was 31.3 %. In last 3 years, it has remained constant at 28.5% & has impacted Growth."

The Congress leader said the manner in which the Modi government has sought to suppress "back series" of GDP and attempted to distort them by adding spins, is now out in the open.

"Truth has a way of coming out and cannot be ever suppressed. Jaitley ji, your govt has left our economy to dire straits & that is the truth," he added.