New Delhi: Hitting out at the government over a top UN agency projecting a decline in India's economic growth, the Congress on Tuesday said that the government's contention that the country's economic problems are imported is a "smoke screen" and it is "singularly responsible" for the woes. As per the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) Trade and Development Report 2022, India's economic growth is expected to decline to 5.7 per cent this year from 8.2 per cent in 2021.
While addressing a press conference, Congress spokesperson Anshul Avijit said that the BJP government and its spin doctors keep quoting high-frequency data to "camouflage" the real health of the economy but nobody is fooled.
"Inflation remains high, unemployment is increasing and growth estimates are being revised downwards with each passing day," he said, adding that the UNCTAD report on India's GDP estimate for 2022-23 makes for disturbing news as India's economic growth is expected to decline to a shocking 5.7 per cent this year from 8.2 per cent.
Citing the report, he said, "It is expected to decline to 4.7 per cent in the year 2023-24. The BJP government has repeatedly blamed the global economic crisis for its domestic woes. It says our economic problems are 'imported'. This is a smoke screen. The government is singularly responsible since all our economic indicators were floundering even before global events laid siege."
"One must remember that even the 8.7 per cent growth last financial year was due to the very low base. India's GDP had contracted to -6.6 per cent in the pandemic year 2020-21, and India was one of the worst performers among all emerging economies," he claimed.
This cut comes on the back of another downward revision of the GDP by the Reserve Bank of India last week, from 7.2 per cent to 7 per cent, he said, adding that the RBI governor has warned of extreme volatility and the need to anchor inflation expectations.
"The headline interest rate, the repo rate, was also increased by 50 bps to 5.9 per cent in another desperate bid to control price rice. From May this year, the repo rate has increased by 1.9 per cent," Avijit said.