September 20, 2020
Economists on collapsing Indian economy
By Syed Rifaqat Ali
The Indian economy is in bad shape. And the crises has been aggravated by the scourge of Coronavirus pandemic which has taken away the lives of about one hundred thousand people.
Unofficially, the figure could be over two hundred thousand people by conservative estimate. BJP member of Parliament, Dr.Subramanian Swamy, who was professor of economics in Harvard University, tweeted on August 31 last year: "Get ready to say good bye to Rs.5 trillion if no new economic policy is forthcoming.
Neither boldness alone nor knowledge alone can save the economy from a crash. It needs both. Today we have neither."
Yashwant Sinha, former Union Finance and External Affairs minister, said in an interview to The Print (29 June 2020): "Ever since the Narendra Modi government assumed office in May 2014, India's economic policies have been mostly driven by whims and fancies, and not by detailed preparation, prior consultations and serious thinking, coupled with the masterly art of recycling earlier policies, many public welfare programmes were distorted, renamed and relaunched."
The Indian economy had already been weakened by years of mismanagement before the crisis (Coronavirus) struck (The Economic Times, June 28,2020).
Dr. Subramanian Swamy was pretty scathing when he told Indian Express editorial director, Prabhu Chawla, " prime minister Narendra Modi doesn't know any economics. BJP is bereft of any economist.
Economy has gone worse during BJP rule. Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman has no clue about macro-economics. Former Union Finance minister, Arun Jaitley, who died recently, did not know ABC of economics."
Economist Andy Mukherjee says "India's economy hasn't been this bad in forty two years. Pulling it back from the abyss will require more honestly than imagination." (The Economic Times, 8 January 2020).
To cap it all, a badly-timed lockdown has thrown Indian economy in total chaos. Dr. T.Jacob John, a renowned virologist, had warned way back in March that an "Avalanche of a pandemic" awaited India, but the Modi government took little note of it to the dismay of Opposition parties in the parliament.
Today, the Central government is in a tight spot and is ruffled by the unbearable pandemic sting. BBC India correspondent, Soutik Biswas, says in his story 'Why India's Covid Problem Could be Bigger Than we Think' (September 17) "fifty million Indians have been tested so far for the virus and more than a million samples are being tested daily."
And because of horrible government planning, the average daily cases have shot up from 62 in April to more than 87,000 in September. And virologists say the worst is yet to come, throwing the Modi government in panic.
About 41 lakhs youth lost jobs due to Covid-19 pandemic with most job losses in the construction and farm sectors, according to a joint report by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) as reported by the Press Trust of India (PTI), August 18, 2020.
With the Indian economy in a shambles, the Central government is lavishly and foolishly spending huge money on the construction and renovation of temples and statues, misusing public money.
The Modi government has recently spent 29.9 bn rupees ($430m) on Sardar Patel 600 feet tall statue in Gujarat. And now the Central government has embarked on the construction of Ram Temple in Ayodhya which will cost the Uttar Pradesh
Government billions of rupees which is misuse of public money.
The common man in India is peeved that on the one hand, millions of youth are jobless, business houses are either shut or crumbling, and on the other hand the government is spending money on insignificant projects like temples and statues.
This government is totally unfit to govern a huge country like India, is the refrain of the common man in India.
If this trend of the government continues, India may slip into third world countries club.
Syed Rifaquat Ali is Sydney-based JOA correspondent
The Journal of America Team:
Editor in chief:
Abdus Sattar Ghazali
Senior Editor:
Prof. Arthur Scott
Special Correspondent
Maryam Turab
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