Launching a scathing attack on former Finance Minister P Chidambaram and Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal on Tuesday highlighted the worsening condition of the economy under the UPA-led government. Goyal said under the UPA government, the country was left with a high fiscal deficit, high inflation, high interest rates, low growth, and very low foreign exchange reserves.
He further stated, "Never once did they (the UPA-led government) speak about trying to uplift the poor by giving them free homes. They never spoke about giving them free insurance, giving them free food grains, or ensuring that every household has access to electricity, cooking gas LPG cylinders, clean drinking water, digital connectivity, or toilets."
The Minister said that under the UPA regime, the nation's growth rate was brought down to about 4.4 per cent from over 8 per cent, which they inherited from the NDA in 2004. Goyal added that his government, led by PM Narendra Modi, received a fragile economy in 2014 characterized by high inflation, core food inflation as high as 13 per cent, and low growth.
"They left behind for PM Narendra Modi, instead of a strong economy, which the UPA inherited in 2004, a fragile economy, which the world looked down upon as the fragile five economies," the minister said in his attack on the UPA. "In 2014, Chidambaram, Rahul Gandhi, and Sonia Gandhiji, then chairpersons of the UPA, were micromanaging the affairs of the government from the backdoor," he added.
Hitting out at the functioning of the UPA government, Goyal said, "Some of the reserves were propped up by artificially borrowing non-resident FCNRB loans and exorbitant interest rates just to temporarily shore up foreign exchange rates. In every respect, the ten years of UPA were a failed experiment, reflecting a government and governance model.
He said during the UPA regime, the Supreme Court had to clearly cancel over 190 coal blocks, putting a mark of disapproval on the irregular and corrupt practices of the Congress Party.
Highlighting his government's endeavours in the last ten years, the minister said, “In the 10 years that we were in government, we strengthened the macroeconomic fundamentals so much that the world today is looking up to India as a beacon of hope, as the country that will lead the economic growth of the world and contribute a very large share to world economic growth.”
"The country in the last three years has demonstrated over 8 per cent average growth, a country with USD 657 billion as foreign exchange reserves. A country that is very rapidly moving toward its stated fiscal deficit target of about 3.7 to 4.3 per cent," Goyal added.
The GDP growth rate of India has been recorded at 8.2 per cent in the final quarter of fiscal year 2023-2024 (FY24). On the other hand, India's external sector is being deftly managed with comfortable foreign exchange reserves and a stable exchange rate. Forex reserves as of the end of March 2024 were sufficient to cover 11 months of projected imports, as per the official data of the Ministry of Finance.
The Indian rupee has also been one of the least volatile currencies among its emerging market peers in FY24. India's external debt vulnerability indicators also continued to be benign. External debt as a ratio to GDP stood at a low level of 18.7 per cent as of the end of March 2024. The ratio of foreign exchange reserves to total debt stood at 97.4 per cent as of March 2024, as per the Economic Survey 2023-24. (ANI)
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