New Delhi, Feb 29 : The Congress on Saturday accused the government of “ruining” the economy by its “monumental mismanagement” and advised the Centre to immediately give money in the hands of the poor by making rural job scheme MNREGA “need based”.
Senior Congress leader Anand Sharma said that under the rural job scheme MNREGA the government should give employment for 150 days a year at a daily wage of Rs 500 to revive rural demand and economy.
“We remain seriously concerned about the continuing job losses which will eventually have an adverse impact on social stability and peace in the country with a large number of unemployed youth in the country having no hope and in despair,” Sharma said.
“This government is ruining the economy by its monumental mismanagement and it continues to remain in denial,” he told reporters.
He urged the government to honestly release the number of jobs lost and not mislead the people by giving “the numbers of the changeover from informal to formal as the number of people who are expected in normal course or the employees to come on the provident fund platform”.
NSO data shows that the GDP for the third quarter is at 4.7 per cent, which is the lowest of the last seven years, Sharma said.
Noting that this is the seventh consecutive quarter when the GDP has fallen, Sharma said it is a matter of “grave concern” that the nominal GDP of India continues to be in single digit.
If 7.7 per cent is the nominal GDP which includes the inflation then where is growth, he said.
“If you take out the expenditure on defence, public administration and other services of the government, the actual GDP growth of third quarter is 3.7 per cent whereas the third quarter historically shows the strongest growth because it is after the kharif crop so there is a growth in agriculture then it is factored in the gross value addition and in the nominal GDP and the real GDP,” he added.
Sharma said the third quarter numbers are generally good because it is the festive season when people go for purchases consumption shows a spike.
“But that has not happened so even in festive season people have not spent because people have no money,” he added.
Sharma said there is 9.2 per cent fall in the investments, gross fixed capital formation which actually is the only measure of the economy growing and a tangible investments growing for creation of new assets, new factories and job creation that remains in the negative.
“We are also staring at a huge fiscal deficit, unmanageble revenue deficit. Revenue receipts are very low both when we look at the GST numbers and also the income tax. So direct and indirect taxes receipts are very low and the government’s budgetary projections are based on revenue receipts of Rs 26 lakh crore whereas up to December the total revenue receipts have been Rs 11 lakh crore.
“So whether in the fourth quarter the government can get Rs 15 lakh crore we have serious doubts because GST will come when factories are producing and selling, other taxes will come when people have the money,” Sharma said.
