NEW DELHI: After the controversy generated by the backseries GDP data by Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MOSPI) which says the economy fared better during the UPA government, NITI Aayog Vice Chairman said that the expansion in UPA government was “reckless” and was because of “untenable fiscal deficit”.
The report released on the website of the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation compares growth rates between old series (2004-05) and new series based on 2011-12 prices.
The government was caught red face, as the data showed economic growth touched double digits twice during the UPA regime (2004-14) and average growth delivered by the government then was much better than that of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA 1) government of 1998-2004 and the first four years of the Modi government (NDA 2).
After the Congress government used this opportunity for their own political end by highlighting how UPA government was better than the NDA, the whole government machinery sprung to action. First, the government was quick to disown the report by saying that the data was not official yet, Niti- Aayog Vice Chairman Rajiv Kumar took to Twitter in defence of the government.
“Higher growth rate in 2009-2011 and in previous years was funded by untenable fiscal deficit and reckless expansion of commercial bank credit which was surely unsustainable. This led to a dramatic economic collapse and growth floundered spectacularly in last 3 years of UPA II,” tweeted Rajiv Kumar, Niti Aayog Vice-Chairman.
Further defending the growth seen under the current Modi Government, Kumar wrote, “Growth rate under four years of Modi Government is still higher than the growth rate of last four years of UPA. This is being managed despite the pernicious legacy of massive NPAs, de-leveraging of commercial bank credit and an uncertain global trade environment”.
Sanjeev Sanyal, the is principal economist in the finance ministry also joined the bandwagon, said the suggested back-series showed growth had accelerated to more than 8 per cent in 2003-04, the last year of the first NDA government, following a series of reforms.