New Delhi: Responding to the criticism of the economic performance of the country by former Union Minister of Finance P Chidambaram, Minister of State Finance and Corporate Affairs Anurag Thakur on Wednesday said that various international agencies have projected India to grow by 12.5 percent in Financial Year (FY) 2021-22 making India the only major economy to have a projected double-digit growth.
Sharing a graphical representation of economic performance on Twitter, Thakur said that only an Ostrich will deny this graph is V-shaped.
Chidambaram on Monday has said in a statement that the FY 2020-21 is the darkest year of the Indian economy in the last four decades. He said that this has resulted in negative growth, thus leaving most countrymen poorer than before.
Anurag has stated that he is not surprised by his statement. Hitting out at Chidambaram, he said that consistent reforms and strong fundamentals ensured the country has a swift rebound from a contraction of 24.4 percent in the first quarter of FY 2020-21 to a growth of 1.6 percent in the fourth quarter of FY 2020-21.
Thakur asked Chidambaram via Twitter “Is the Indian economy an island in isolation; have other major economies not faced a GDP contraction?
He further said that GDP of France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom has contracted by 8.2 percent, 4.9 percent, 8.9 percent and 9.9 percent.
“Canada, Russia, South Africa and the United States of America have also seen GDP contraction in the past year” he added.
The coronavirus pandemic has hit India’s economy in a major way. GDP of the country which was already declining before the pandemic hit has been in negative figures, first time in the history of independent India. As per the data, India’s GDP has contracted by minus 7.3 percent in the FY 2020-21. Due to this, people have lost jobs, businesses have been closed and there has been a sharp rise in price of various commodities including petrol and diesel.
