BEST PERFORMANCE OF INDIA (2014-19)

Painting a rosy picture of the Indian economy and its macro-economic situation, Union Minister Arun Jaitley on Friday described the current 2014-19 NDA rule period as “perhaps the best performing” in Indian history.

In a blog post, after stand-in Finance Minister Piyush Goyal presented the interim Budget 2019, Jaitley said:

“India’s macro-economic stability has unquestionably witnessed 2014-2019 as perhaps the best-performing period in Indian history. The GDP growth during this five-year period will be about 7.5 per cent.”

“The inflation will be in the range of 4 per cent. The average fiscal deficit in the past five years has fallen from the UPA II’s figure of 5.3 per cent to 3.7 per cent. We will close a five-year period by a figure of 3.4 per cent,” Jaitley said.

Farmer’s scheme

“We would ordinarily have maintained a target of 3.3 per cent but have a major announcement involving extra expenditure being made in the current Budget,” he added, referring to the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-KISAN) scheme, assuring ₹6,000 per annum to vulnerable landholding farmer families, who have cultivable land up to two hectares.

Comparing numbers

Jaitley said that the country has been performing well on macro-economic factors.

“Current Account Deficit from the UPA II’s five-year figure of 3.3 per cent — with a high of 5.6 per cent — has fallen during this period to an average of 1.5 per cent,” he said.

“Similarly, external debt to the GDP has fallen from 23.9 per cent to 20.5 per cent till March, 2018. Foreign exchange reserves are comfortable at $396 billion and touched an all-time high of $425 billion,” he said.

“It is, therefore, obvious that India is being hailed as a bright spot in the global economy,” he added.

On reservation

Jaitley also highlighted the move to provide a 10 per cent reservation for the economically weaker sections of the non-reserved category in educational institutions and jobs.

He said this has been guided by the Antyodaya philosophy of his government.

Published on February 01, 2019