Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman said there is strong recovery happening in India, as she announced yet another set of stimulus package for boosting the economy.
She presented the state of the economy, saying markets are at record high and India’s foreign reserves has reached US $560 billion. Sitharaman also said that the Goods and Services Tax (GST) collection has increased by 10 per cent, to over Rs 1 lakh crore.
“Quite a few indicators showing a distinct recovery in the economy,” said the finance minister.
“I would like to point out that Moody’s too has revived its forecast from 9.6 negative to 8.9 negative,” Sitharaman added.
The finance minister’s address comes hours after a team of economists including Michael Patra, Reserve Bank of India’s deputy governor in charge of monetary policy said that the India’s economy probably shrank for a second straight quarter pushing the country into an unprecedented recession.
In the central bank’s first ever published ‘nowcast,’ the data showed the Gross domestic product contracted 8.6% in the quarter ended September. The economy had slumped about 24% in April to June. The government is due to publish official statistics on November 27.
The authors of the nowcast wrote, “India has entered a technical recession in the first half of 2020-21 for the first time in its history,” the authors wrote.
On Wednesday, the government had approved a Rs 2 lakh crore production-linked incentive (PLI) package to boost domestic manufacturing in identified sectors, and launched a Rs 8,100-crore viability gap funding (VGF) scheme to encourage private participation in social infrastructure such as water supply and solid waste management.
Following the announcement Prime Minister Narendra Modi had said the Cabinet decision will boost manufacturing, give opportunities to youth and make India a preferred investment destination. “This is an important step towards improving our competitiveness & realising an Aatmanirbhar Bharat,” he tweeted.
Source: Hindustan Times
