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Modi govt incompetent in terms of economic management: PC

Chennai: Senior Congress leader and former Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram on Sunday lashed out at the Narendra Modi government at the Centre, terming it 'incompetent' in terms of economic management.

Slamming the government's economic measures like demonetisation and Goods and Service Tax in its four years and two months of existence, he said "we are now worried what will happen in the next eight months." The Lok Sabha elections will be held next year.

Reeling out statistics at a seminar titled 'Challenges Facing India' here, also attended by Left leaders Sitaram Yechury and D Raja, Chidambaram alleged that there has been a dip in the country's growth rate over the years due to lesser investment and lower lending by banks.

He said countries bigger in terms of GDP size like the U.S. and China were doing well even as India was suffering from slow growth and issues like unemployment,spurred by steps like demonetisation.

The note ban, for instance, had severely impacted the Micro Small Medium Enterprises sector, he said and referred to recent reports that about 50,000 such units had closed down in Tamil Nadu post the ban on then high value notes of Rs 1,000 and Rs 500.

This was the case in many other Indian cities, he added.

Further, the Indian Rupee was becoming weaker against the U.S. Dollar, he said, adding that if this continued, it would lead to increase in import costs, price rise and hike in interest rate, among others.

The Non Performing Assets (NPAs) stood at about Rs 10 lakh crore, he said.

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