Press Trust of India
New Delhi, Jan 1: India has emerged as the world’s fastest growing economy notwithstanding global demand slowdown and four droughts, Chief Economic Advisor Arvind Subramanian said Friday. In a series of tweets, he said there has been improvement in quality of spending towards capital and agriculture, fiscal consolidation at central and state levels and improvement in indirect tax efficiency.
“Despite declining global demand & 4 droughts, (India has emerged as) fastest growing economy,” he said in one of the tweets. He also said the commentary on mid-year Economic Analysis, presented in Parliament last month, has focused on challenges. India had outpaced China as the world’s fastest growing economy in 2015. Earlier in the day, Congress slammed the government for failure on economic front.
Addressing a press conference, senior Congress leader and former Finance Minister P Chidambaram said for the whole of 2015-16, GDP growth is not likely to be higher than 7 to 7.3 per cent, which means that it will be the same as, or lower than, in 2014-15. “The economy is stuck in a groove,” he said. Referring to the mid-year economic analysis, Chidambaram said it has candidly admitted that private investment and exports — two of the four drivers of demand – are languishing. “The Indian economy is like a car running on two wheels,” he added. Chidambaram also said he was not yet prepared to say there has been a fiscal mismanagement but “reading the mid-year economic analysis, there are pointers to serious mistakes in fiscal management”.
