"Chidambaram's speech had more sarcasm than content": FM gives point by point rebuttal

"Chidambaram's speech had more sarcasm than content": FM gives point by point rebuttal

Update: 2020-02-12 05:30 GMT

With the opposition upping the ante against the government about economic slowdown, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman allayed such fears and mentioned that green shoots are visible in the economy. Speaking in the Rajya Sabha the Finance Minister gave a point by point rebuttal to P. Chidambaram, a former Union Finance Minister during the UPA era. She gave a list of 7 indicators that showed that the economy is not in trouble as it is portrayed to be. "There are 7 important macroeconomic indicators which show that there are green shoots in the economy… economy is not in trouble" she said while replying to the debate on the Union Budget in the Lok Sabha.

She mentioned that the global sentiments are in favour of India and that the foreign investors continued to show confidence in India by pointing out that the country attracted a net FDI of USD 24.4 billion in April-November 2019-20 as against USD 21.2 billion for the same period last year.

Foreign Portfolio Investments also saw a huge increase with an inflow of USD 12.6 billion for April-November 2019-20 compared to USD 8.7 billion in the last fiscal.

She said that the Goods and Services Tax revenue collected in January 2020 grew at 12% while it grew at 6% in November 2019.

She mentioned that the sensex remained upbeat rising at 5.6% till January 2020.

Pointing to the manufacturing PMI which saw an 8 year high of 55.3 in January, she indicated the expansion in manufacturing sector. She also mentioned about the kicking off of the 103 lakh crores infrastructure pipeline that is set to boost growth and bring in FDI inflows that will create jobs.

"The forex reserves, which have been built up from USD 413 billion by end of March 2019 to USD 466.69 billion by 24 January 2020, reflect an increasing confidence in the Indian economy," the Finance Minister said.

Lashing out at P. Chidambaram, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said that Mr. Chidambaram's speech on the Union Budget had more sarcasm than content. Mr. Chidambaram had mentioned earlier mentiond that the economy was being attended to by 'incompetent doctors'. FM Nirmala Sitharaman came back at it with a strong counter saying that there was nothing to learn from the people who gave a mountain of bad loans and twin balance sheet crisis. She said that "We are certainly predisposed about not repeating mistakes of UPA".

The finance minister said that while FDI "ran out of the country in 2012-13" under "competent doctors" overseeing the economy, free trade agreements signed during UPA's tenure are still hurting Indian industry. "We will not want to learn from the competent doctors during whose time inflation was running in double digits," she added. 

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