Citing the research paper of ex-RBI Deputy Governor Dr Viral Acharya, the Congress on Wednesday attacked the government by saying that Modi government’s alleged “monopolistic” friends are a big cause of price rise in India as growing concentration of economic power is having a negative effect on people’s lives.
Claiming that monopolies in various sectors are pushing prices higher, Congress general secretary Jairam
Ramesh said that profit margins across all sectors have doubled from 18 per cent in 2015 to 36 per cent in 2021 due to growing market concentrations created by the Modi dispensation.
He said that a research paper by top economist, Dr Viral Acharya has substantiated this concern about higher profit margins due to monopolies in several sectors.
“As the Adani ‘megascam’ has shown, PM Modi’s ‘suit-boot ki sarkaar’ has systematically helped his cronies build large, concentrated monopolies across various sectors since he took office.
Now we have fresh and credible evidence that these monopolies are driving price rise in the country by misusing their market power to systematically charge 10-30 percent higher prices than their competitors,” the Congress leader alleged in a statement.
Ramesh further said that this evidence comes to us from the internationally renowned financial economist Acharya, who served as deputy governor of the Reserve Bank of India from 2017 to 2019.
“This fresh evidence supports the Congress party’s stand that the Modi government, by handing out favours to its crony friends, is hurting consumers, small businesses and even those large businesses trying to compete with these monopolies. In return for these favours, PM Modi and the BJP are rewarded with funding from electoral bonds,” Ramesh alleged.
“Right through Bharat Jodo Yatra, Rahul Gandhi kept drawing attention to the growing concentration of economic power in India and its effects on our daily lives.
Now, there’s a solid research paper by top economist, Dr Viral Acharya, substantiating this concern,” Ramesh said in a tweet.
“PM Modi’s ‘enabling of monopolies’ is part of his ‘disastrous’ economic policies which have inflicted a price on Indians, such as a badly designed GST, sky-high prices for petrol and gas, indiscriminate privatisation of agriculture and PSUs,” he said.
The Congress supports an economy which benefits all, including private enterprise with a fair and level playing field for large and small businesses, especially MSMEs that generate the bulk of employment in the economy, he noted in the statement.