DEMO, GST TWIN BLOW TO ECONOMY: MANMOHAN
Wednesday, 08 November 2017 | Nayan Dave | Ahmedabad
Demonetisation and GST proved to be a complete disaster for Indian economy and broke the back of small and medium businesses in the country, said former Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh during his visit to his successor Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s home-state Gujarat on Tuesday.
“Tomorrow will mark exactly one year since the disastrous policy of demonetisation was thrust on the people of India. I say it with immense pain and a sense of deep responsibility, that November 8 was a ‘Black Day’ for our economy, and indeed our democracy,’’ Singh said while addressing members of business community at Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Memorial auditorium in Ahmedabad.
Terming demonetisation as organised loot and legalised plunder, the former Prime Minister went on to say that demonetisation has proved to be mere bluster aimed at reaping political dividends while the real offenders have escaped. He claimed that because of demonetisation country’s GDP growth rate dropped to 5.7% under the new calculations.
He said instead of learning lessons from the blunder of demonetisation and providing relief to the poor and the marginalised, farmers and SMEs, the Government chose to inflict on them a badly designed and hastily implemented GST.
“This twin blow is a complete disaster for our economy. It has broken the back of small and medium businesses in India. In the textile hub of Surat alone, 60,000 looms have been discarded since July. An estimate of 21,000 jobs has been lost in just one industry sector in Surat. The impact in the rest of the country is equally bad if not worse,” he said, adding that overall, as our domestic sector is not able to cope with demand and as a result China is benefiting from this situation.
Divulging figures to support his claim he pointed out that while in the first half of FY 2016-17 India’s import from China stood at Rs 1.96 lakh crore. During the same period in FY 2017-18, the import from China increased to Rs. 2.41 lakh crore. He said unprecedented increase of imports by more than 45,000 crore which is a 23 per cent increase in a year can be attributed largely to demonetisation and GST.
Training his guns on PM Modi’s remark that nothing was done in 70 years rule of Congress, he said the life expectancy at the time of Independence in 1947 was 31 years which has increased to 71 years. He went on to say that literacy increased from 18 to 76 per cent, and India became self-sufficient in food production. He further said that from a slow growing economy, India was amongst the fastest growing economies. ‘’I wish PM finds more dignified way to convince people for votes without denigrating the country,” he added.
GST was envisioned by the UPA Government and it was supposed to simplify taxation in the country with a single tax cooed at 18 per cent, but current GST was great departure from that vision, he said, adding that it has transformed into a complicated mess, with multiple slabs and rates as high as 28 % along with additional cesses
He also criticised Modi’s dream project Bullet train saying that nation’s existing passenger rail network is languishing and needs to be improved on speed as well as safety point of view. The former Prime Minister denied that Modi as a Chief Minister had ever met him to discuss issue of Narmada dam.
“Modiji never met me for Narmada project. In fact, when World Bank stopped aid for the construction of dam in 1992 as a Finance Minister, I intervened and we ensured that the project gets all the money required,” he said.
Responding to Modi’s repeated jibes that the Congress hated Gujaratis, he said Mahatma Gandhi, Sardar Patel and even former Prime Minister Morarji Desai were Congressmen and always received their due respect from the party.
Replying a query on the leadership quality of Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi, he said Rahul was a young leader who would prove to be a dynamic and competent leader in future.
http://www.dailypioneer.com/todays-newspaper/demo-gst-twin-blow-to-economy-manmohan.html
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