India’s debt has tripled to ₹155 lakh crore in the nine years of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government, the Congress claimed on Saturday and demanded a white paper on the state of the economy.
Addressing a press conference, Congress spokesperson Supriya Shrinate alleged the Modi government’s “economic mismanagement” is responsible for the present state of the economy and claimed that ₹100 lakh crore of debt has been added since Mr. Modi took charge as Prime Minister in May 2014.
“As Chief Minister of Gujarat, Mr. Modi used to blame those on the other side of the political spectrum as inefficient, incompetent and corrupt -- adjectives that today suit him and his government more than anyone else,” Ms. Shrinate said.
“After ruining India’s economic growth story, creating huge unemployment, raging inflation, Mr. Modi has done the unthinkable, which is an addition of over ₹100 lakh crore to India’s debt, which is at an alarming level,” she added.
The Congress leader also said India’s debt in 2014 was ₹55 lakh crore and it has now gone past ₹155 lakh crore. Under 14 Prime Ministers in 67 years, it was ₹55 lakh crore while Mr. Modi’s tenure saw an addition of ₹100 lakh crore.
“Economic management is not the same thing as headline management. It cannot be done through teleprompters and definitely not through WhatsApp forwards. We demand a white paper on the Indian economy because the fault lines are only getting deeper,” she said.
Asked if India’s situation was similar to its neighbours like Sri Lanka and Pakistan, she said that India’s fundamentals are strong and she would not resort to “rumour mongering”.
“Our fundamentals are robust but the Modi government is working to erode it bit by bit every day,” she said.
Ms. Shrinate also claimed that the bottom 50% of Indians who own 3% of the country’s wealth paid 64% of the GST collected. The richest 10% who own 80% of the country’s resources pay only 3% of GST, she added
India’s debt-to-GDP ratio has risen to 84% and is alarming when compared to other developing and emerging market economies where the average debt-to-GDP ratio is at 64.5%, the Congress leader noted.
“India is bearing an annual cost of ₹11 lakh crore to service this mounting debt. Questions are now being raised on India’s debt servicing capacity. According to the CAG report, government debt was 52.5% of GDP in 2019-20 and the debt sustainability had turned negative that year. With debt at 84% of the GDP, debt sustainability is suspect,” she asserted.
