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Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, on Friday, said his government has done much better than the UPA government on the various parameters of the economy such as GDP growth and managing indicators such as current account deficit, interest rate, fiscal deficit, revenue deficit and inflation.
Jaitley used data to counter his predecessor P Chidambaram’s arguments while replying to the debate on the Budget in the Rajya Sabha here.
Jaitley said the Centre has taken the country from policy paralysis to structural reforms and from ‘fragile five’ to world’s bright spot.
“An analysis can be incorrect. Data doesn’t speak any incorrect language,” Jaitley said and asked the Opposition to do away with the “smug approach” while analysing the country’s economy.
Realistic assessments
The Finance Minister defended the remarks of the Chief Economic Adviser Arvind Subramanian on employment and farm distress and said they were realistic assessments. Taking on Chidambaram’s statement that Subramanian has been a good doctor but NDA is a terrible patient, he said the problem will become worse if the doctor is terrible. “After 2004, we had a terrible doctor,” he said.
He said the UPA had unacceptable level of current account deficit and under the present government, it has been less than one per cent. “UPA’s CAD levels were unacceptable and we have been made to hear speeches on current account deficit,” he said.
On GDP, he said growth in 2012-13 was 5.3 per cent and 6.3 per cent in 2013-14 under the Congress, compared to 5.7 per cent in one quarter under BJP. “You left it at 6.3 per cent,” he said. Revenue deficit is decreasing under the Narendra Modi-led government, he said and added that the figures under the UPA were unacceptable. He said the campaign against black money had a positive impact. “Income tax collection is up by 19.3 per cent,” he said and credited the increase to the campaign against black money and demonetisation.
Welfare schemes
He said the Centre is paying more than the Budget Estimate for all welfare schemes and said despite that achieved targets of fiscal discipline. He hoped the GST collection will increase in the coming quarters. The banking sector, he said, continues to be a challenge and added that recapitalisation will improve the lending capacity of banks.
He justified the decision to reduce corporate tax and said when Chidambaram was Finance Minister he brought direct tax code that recommended a lower corporate tax and when he is in Opposition, he is criticising his own suggestion.
Earlier in the day, the elders questioned the Centre on issues such as unemployment and inflation. “We told you (government) not to implement GST in July. You have kept a provision of ₹55,000 crore for compensation to States in the Budget but the compensation during the first six months alone was ₹40,000 crore, which implies it will be ₹80,000 crore for the entire year. From where will you bring the remaining ₹55,000 crore,” asked Trinamool Congress leader Derek O’Brien.
CPI’s D Raja said the Centre suffered from “ideological bankruptcy and hypocrisy”. “You do not have any strategy to generate revenues. Rather than generating revenue, it has forgone revenue to the tune of ₹2.45 lakh crore by giving concessions to corporate houses. The Centre is disinvesting PSUs and privatising firms like Air India,” he added.
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