NEW DELHI: India is the fastest-growing economy globally in the current year, and it will be in the following years, said finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Thursday.
The minister while addressing the Lok Sabha said “if we compare our economy with other developed nations, our’s is on sustained recoveries.” She highlighted that the GDP of the USA was -3.4 % in 2020-21, in 2021-22 it was 5.6%.
“Our’s was -6.6% in 2020-21, and in 2021-22, we are concluding with 9% GDP growth. It means they are recovering slower than us. Similarly, the GDP of the entire Euro area was -6.4%, in 2021-22 it is 5.2 % and 3.9% projected in 2023-24.”
The minister also took a potshot on Congress, calling their rule was Andha Kal (dark age) in the country. On the inflation, the minister said despite the significant supply side disruptions, India’s Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation was 6.2% in 2021, as compared to 9.1% in 2008-9 during the global financial crisis.
She said the pandemic has been an absolutely rare event in the last couple of 100 years. In the past, India witnessed four times contraction in its GDP, triggered through the international event. None of the previous crises took the GDP growth in minus. But the pandemic in 2020-21 led to contraction of 6.6% negative growth in GDP. “It was one of the worst we could face and we were not alone but all over the world, ‘’ the minister noted. “We witnessed Rs 9.57 lakh crore reduction in GDP due to Covid-19 in 2020-21,” said the minister.