FM's reply on price rise: 'Criticism political, economy shows positive signs'

Talking in the House, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said, “I find that this was more a discussion on the political angle of price rise than a data-driven discussion. My reply will also be a bit political. You will have to listen to a political response if you have made a political argument.”

“Let us look at India Today compared to what is happening in the rest of the world. Why should we have to compare with the rest of the world.

Be it in 2008 or before, we have never seen a calamity of this kind (Covid). I recognise that everyone played their role in coming out of the pandemic. We are the fastest growing economy in the world, even World Bank and other agencies have said this, but it is not my assessment.

Each time these agencies have reassessed the global growth they have downgraded countries but even if they have downgraded India, we have remained at the highest, fastest growing economy level.

We are much better than most countries because of the steps taken by our government and the RBI

Globally when the situation is such and every agency after agency, in their assessment has ranked India as the highest, this House will have to acknowledge it

It is not that the country doesn’t have problems, we are trying to solve these problems.”

On Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury’s comments

Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury asked if we are heading into stagflation. I want to assure, we are not.

A Bloomberg survey has said zero probability of India slipping into recession even though there are several big economies that are at substantial risk of slipping into recession.

4,000 banks in China are on the verge of going bankrupt. In India, the NPAs of Scheduled Commerical Banks have hit an all-time low.

Govt debt to GDP ratio of many countries is in triple digits whereas we have controlled our debt at 56 per cent of GDP for 2021-2022. So even comparing general debt, we are in a far better position compared to other countries.

This morning we announced GST collection for July. We have garnered the second highest level ever in GST collection – 1.49 lakh crore. In April, it was 1.67 lakh crore, the highest. For 5 straight months, GST collection has been above 1.4 lakh crore mark.

The economy is getting more robust and showing very positive signs.

On Supriya Sule’s comments 

Supriya Sule said we can’t be going on about the past and talk about our 8 years. When questions are raised not on facts, facts will have to be reminded. I would like to go back. In 2008 to 2013 period, we were a fragile country. Today, despite the pandemic, lockdowns in China Russia-Ukraine war, we have held the inflation within 7 and below. This has to be recognised.

In UPA, inflation went to double digits 9 times. Remember that when you tell us to keep inflation below 7. We will keep it below 7, Modiji is keeping an eye on this.

Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury named one economist who criticized the state of the Indian economy. Their problem is they will name the same economist always who criticizes us but they won’t talk about all the economists who in praise us. Raghuram Rajan has also praised RBI and our economy vis-a-vis the condition in Sri Lanka.

Raghuram Rajan has also said India has sufficient foreign exchange reserves, RBI is doing a good job, we don’t have problems like Sri Lanka. He has been very clear in his comments.

Adhir Ranjan is worried about inflation. Raghuram Rajan has said inflation is everywhere. Inflation is coming down now across the world and it will come down in India too. So this is what Rajan has said though he didn’t mention the efforts that our govt is taking to bring prices down.

We have to reduce drastically duty on edible oil imports to bring oil prices down.

On Adani/Ambani links

Those who accuse us of working only for Adani and Ambani, I wish to point out:

In Rajasthan, CM Ashok Gehlot took a cabinet decision to give over 2900 hectare land to Adani for a solar power project. In December 2021, Adani renewable energy park agreement was signed between Adani and Rajasthan govt just a day after former Congress president (Rahul Gandhi) was in Jaipur lecturing about Adani and our government.

The same thing happened in Tamil Nadu where 59 MoUs have been signed which include agreements between Adani and the DMK-Congress alliance govt.

So the Congress persons are also signing these agreements with Adanis and giving them projects but they are blaming us for helping the Adanis and Ambanis.