Union Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Thursday said that India could have achieved the position as the fifth-biggest economy in the world earlier itself, but for the imported philosophy of socialism, which depended on centralised planning.
Speaking at an event organised by the Hindi Vivek Magazine in Delhi, the finance minister termed the 1991 economic reforms undertaken by the then Congress government as “aadhe-adhure reforms" (half-baked reforms), where the economy was not opened in the right way but as per the strictures imposed by the IMF.
No progress happened till the BJP’s Atal Bihari Vajpayee took on the Prime Ministership and his focus on infrastructure building, roads and mobile telephony helped us a lot, she said. Ten more years were lost after the corrupt UPA government came to power, where the focus was making personal gains and the country’s interests were left behind, the minister claimed.
The Union Cabinet minister, interestingly, addressed the event in Hindi. She said, “I speak Hindi with a lot of ‘sankoch‘ (hesitation)." Despite that, Sitharaman continued her address and finished the entire speech, which lasted over 35 minutes, in Hindi.
Stressing how Narendra Modi initiated fundamental path-breaking reforms, which also include the direct benefit transfer scheme that has ensured transparency in public delivery without leakages, Siharaman said that benefits of up to Rs 2 lakh crore have occurred as a result of the scheme.
The policy decisions have also laid the foundations for the emergence of a big lender like SBI which can serve the credit needs of the economy quickly, she said.
The Modi regime has also taken the right decisions to be away from businesses where the government should not be, Sitharaman said, pointing out that Air India was facing losses of Rs 20 crore per day till it was privatised.
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