UPA inherited healthy economy, made it non-performing: Govt's ‘white paper’
UPA undermined macroeconomics, abandoned 1991 reforms in 2004, government's white paper of economy read.
The UPA government inherited a healthy economy ready for more reforms but made it non-performing in its 10 years, the Centre said in the white paper on the economy that it presented in Parliament on Thursday. The UPA leadership seldom fails to take credit for the 1991 reforms but they abandoned them after coming to power in 2004, it said. The UPA government severely undermined the macroeconomic foundations in its quest to maintain high economic growth by any means after the global financial crisis of 2008, the Centre said.
In the first 24 pages, the white paper detailed the economic failures of the UPA government and listed out the various corruptions that took place in those 10 years including Commonwealth Games, 2G Telecom, Saradha Chit Fund, INX Media, Antrix Devas etc. From page 25, the white paper elaborated on the steps taken by the BJP government for economic facelift.
"When our government assumed office, the economy was on a road to nowhere exhibiting tell-tale signs of deep distress emanating from multiple 'wrong turns' in economic policy....As soon as our government took over in 2014, we recognized the urgent need to revamp and overhaul systems and processes, to help India advance on the path of development while also bolstering its macroeconomic foundations," it said.
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"The Amrit Kaal has just begun and our destination is "India a developed nation by 2047". It is our Kartavya Kaal," the white paper said.
Crisis of leadership in the UP government: What the white paper said
As the white paper termed the UPA rule as a lost decade, it blamed the lack of leadership for this. "Time and again, there was a crisis of leadership in the UPA government. It came out in full public glare in the shameful public tearing up of an ordinance issued by the government," it said.
Fragile five to top five
Indian economy moved from fragile five to top five in just about a decade because of the reforms taken up by the BJP government. "The rise of the Indian economy in the last ten years despite unprecedented obstacles of external origin (e.g. pandemic, geopolitical disturbances, etc.) is manifest in the trajectory of its GDP ranking. From being the 10th largest in 2014, India has surpassed many giants to become the fifth largest economy in 2023 (but for the pandemic in 2020, we would have become the 5th largest at least two years earlier) and is slated to become the third largest by 2027 as per IMF projections," it said.
“The UPA Government failed miserably to facilitate economic activities. Instead the UPA Government created hurdles that held back economy. It basked in the after-glory of the lagged effects of the reforms of the Vajpayee-led NDA government and benign global conditions and proceeded to exploit the resultant fast economic growth for narrow political purposes without much concern for long-term economic consequences," it said.
"The result was a mountain of bad loans, a high fiscal deficit despite much of it being hidden, a high current account deficit, double-digit inflation for five years which hit the pockets of many Indians and membership of the club of "Fragile Five" in 2013. They not only failed to impart dynamism into the economy but also robbed the economy of it such that our industrialists went on record stating that they would rather invest abroad than in India. To drive investors away is easy but to win them back is hard. The UPA government also demonstrated that it is easier to hurt the economy than it is to help it. They inherited a healthy economy and bequeathed an enfeebled one to us. We have restored its vitality. The box below captures the difference we could make in the last ten years and we hope to build on it in the next twenty-five years," Centre's white paper said.