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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Indian economy in a tailspin: What went wrong -Asit Ranjan Mishra and Gireesh Chandra Prasad

Indian economy in a tailspin: What went wrong -Asit Ranjan Mishra and Gireesh Chandra Prasad

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published Published on Sep 22, 2017   modified Modified on Sep 22, 2017
-Livemint.com

While investment demand was anyway weak when the NDA came to power in 2014, private consumption has also started decelerating due to demonetisation

New Delhi:
The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) won a landslide in the 2014 general election with the promise of fast-tracking economic growth and creating jobs. It replaced the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government that was mired in corruption scandals and had mismanaged the economy. Three years on, it is the economy again that is proving to be the Achilles’ heel for the Narendra Modi government.

Sample this: Economic growth decelerated to a three-year low of 5.7% in the June quarter of 2017-18. The current account deficit (CAD) hit a four-year high in the same quarter at 2.4% of gross domestic product (GDP) despite benign oil prices that have cushioned government finances. While investment demand was anyway weak when the NDA assumed office, private consumption has also started decelerating, impacted by the government’s demonetization drive. Exports have picked up recently, but they are no longer the economic drivers they once were and exporters have been hit hard by a rising rupee. The goods and services tax (GST), which unified India into a single market, has added to the woes because of complex tax filing procedures.

Over the past weeks, news of the economy has dominated the headlines. The government went into a huddle and on Wednesday, finance minister Arun Jaitley said the government is working on a stimulus package to revive the economy.

What went wrong?

Pronab Sen, former chief statistician of India and someone who has worked in the government for the last 25 years, said the problem started with the reversal of rural growth, which remained high during the 2004-2012 period, propelling overall economic growth. “While farm output was growing at 3%, farm income was increasing by 7.5%. Income of the poorest was growing rapidly (and) that drove growth as well as inflation,” he said.

The problem began in 2013-14 when things started to reverse. Global food prices came down while the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) still maintained a restrictive monetary policy. Growth in the minimum support price (MSP) of selected farm products slowed dramatically to 3.5% per year from an average of around 8% earlier.

After 2014, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), which assures 100 days of manual work a year to at least one member of every village household, became resource-driven rather than demand-driven.

Less focus on MGNREGS, especially during the two consecutive droughts years of 2014-15 and 2015-16, aggravated the rural demand situation and dampened rural growth. While growth was slowing, two back-to-back structural changes, the withdrawal of high-value banknotes and implementation of GST gave a body blow to the unorganized and organized sectors respectively.

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Livemint.com, 22 September, 2017, http://www.livemint.com/Politics/bzfrqgomp7TNdaCnCnZHrK/Indian-economy-in-a-tailspin-What-went-wrong.html


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