'Indian economy is not in good shape is obvious'

A day before the government presents the Economic Survey, former Prime Minister and Congress leader Manmohan Singh on Monday released a document detailing the current scenario of the Indian economy, which he said was not in good shape.

Manmohan Singh, a former Governor of the RBI, has been critical of the Modi government's decision to demonetise Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 notes.

"Tomorrow is the day when the government will present its economic survey. We thought it a good idea that we should also bring out a document which sets out what we consider is the real state of the economy.

"So that the country as a whole has the ways and means of assessing where the economy is, where it is heading to and what can be done to bring on the right path," said Manmohan Singh unveiling the "Real State of Economy", prepared by the Congress.

"Indian economy is not in good shape is now obvious. The IMF has projected that the growth rate of India this current fiscal year will not be 7.6 per cent but 6.6 percent. Several other agencies have made similar projections," said Manmohan Singh.

"I will not comment on those projections, it is for you assess what the truth is. This is a contribution to the ongoing debate on where are economy stands, where it is heading to and what is to be done to pull it in the right path," added Manmohan Singh.

The BJP on Monday cited official statistics to counter the Congress' claim that the economy was not doing well and called the party press meets, a damp squib. Union Ministers Piyush Goyal and Nirmala Sitharaman in a joint press briefing said that during the last two and a half years of the Narendra Modi government, the economy has improved on every parameter as compared to the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance's (UPA's) last three years. Citing official statistics, Goyal said that during the NDA rule, inflation has come down, current account deficit and fiscal deficit have narrowed, foreign exchange reserves have gone up and the GDP growth rate has been consistently above seven percent.