Our Bureau Days ahead of the Union Budget, former Finance Minister P Chidambaram trained his guns on the ruling BJP, asserting that the Economic Survey had nailed the government on its failure in three main problem areas — agriculture, education and unemployment.
Chidambaram said the Centre’s failure on these three critical areas will form the bedrock of future political mobilisation and alignments.
“If you (BJP) have not addressed the acute distress in the farm sector, unemployment and education, what have you done in the last three-and-a-half years?” asked the Congress leader, at the launch of his book, titled
“After nearly four years in office, the NDA government has admitted that it has failed to address the challenges in education, employment and agriculture and hopes to do so in the last year of its five-year term,” he said.
Problem areas
In paragraphs 1.31 to 1.33, the Economic Survey highlighted these three major concerns.
On education, for instance, the Survey said: “The issue that needs re-emphasising is education. Looking at the looming technological headwinds, and the (small) risks of there being a stall in India’s convergence process, the education challenge cannot be addressed soon enough given India’s learning outcomes.”
On agriculture, the Survey pointed out that the level of real agricultural GDP and real agricultural revenues has remained constant and suggests “radical follow-up action” to address agricultural distress.
On employment, the Survey pointed out that providing India’s burgeoning labour force with good, high productivity jobs will “remain a pressing medium-term challenge”.
Bleak farm outlook
“The conclusion on the state of agriculture is depressing… It is clear that agriculture has been left in the lurch,” Chidambaram pointed out.
In a statement released to BusinessLine , Chidambaram said: “The defining statement of the Economic Survey is that the Indian economy ‘decoupled’ from the global economy. When world growth was accelerating, India’s economy went into a decline. Having confessed to the outcome, the Economic Survey fails to identify the grave mistakes committed by the government that led to the decline in 2016-17 and 2017-18. Ultimately, people paid the price.”
He said that although the Survey claims the growth rate for 2017-18 will be 6.75 per cent (implying a second half growth rate of 7.5 per cent), it offers little evidence in support of this claim. The growth rate in the first half was 6 per cent, and the year is likely to end with a growth rate of between 6 and 6.5 per cent.
Quoting the Survey, the former FM said it is an admission that the major programmes undertaken by the government (toilets, Jan Dhan accounts, LPG connections and village electrification) have not resulted in tangible outcomes. “It is an indictment of the policies and their execution,” he said.
‘Survey depresses’
Chidambaram said , the Survey is a “depressing” report of the fiscal year that will come to an end in two months.
“The future course of the economy is conditional on many ifs. After listing the unfinished work (and there are many), the Survey seems to prepare the grounds for failure by praying that (1) the world economy maintains its growth momentum and (2) oil prices do not persist at current levels. The outlook is therefore uncertain, if not bleak… The Survey admits to the two underlying macroeconomic vulnerabilities — fiscal deficit and current account deficit and hints at slower consolidation. This admission belies the government’s claim of ‘sound macro economic fundamentals’. Finally, the Survey has thrown the burden on private investments and exports. It is obvious that the government has thrown in the towel and hopes that the private sector will come to the rescue of the economy! There is not much gas left in the government,” he said.