'India is the Only Bright Spot Among 7 Economies of World': Ashwini Vaishnaw at BJP Meet | Exclusive

India is the “only bright spot among top seven economies of the world" and Congress governments always had higher inflation, Railway minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said in a presentation at the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) parliamentary meeting on Wednesday in the presence of PM Narendra Modi.

News18 has accessed the presentation which said India is a bright spot on an otherwise dark horizon and the country was seeing high growth of around 7% and moderate inflation of around 6.9%.

The presentation said the United States of America was seeing low growth and high inflation, while the United Kingdom was seeing medium growth and high inflation, and France was seeing low growth coupled with high inflation.

The presentation also cited media reports to highlight how cost of living was increasing in the West, while India was being preferred as a partner for investment.

THE INFLATION TREND

The presentation said the Congress governments always had higher inflation, citing how the Manmohan Singh government saw inflation rising to an average of 8.4%, while in the Modi government, the average inflation had been at 4.9%. It was also low at 5.4% on an average during the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government. The presentation also said that capacity utilization in factories has increased since 2020-21 first quarter from 60% to 72% in the same quarter of 2022-23.

The presentation said the bank credit growth was the highest in many years at 18% in October this year compared to 6% in September in 2020. “Investment as percentage of GDP has grown from 27% in 2020-21 to 31% in 2022-23," the presentation said.

It further said that investment has been ramped up to Rs 19-20 lakh crore per quarter now in 2022 compared to an average of Rs 15 lakh crore in pre-Covid years.

‘INVEST IN INFRA’

The presentation said India has followed an investment strategy of ‘investing in infrastructure’, while Western countries had been following the strategy of ‘consume and consume’ that had little multiplier effect.

“India’s investment strategy has direct multiplier effect and rupee turns around more than three times," the presentation said.

It further said that the Covid impact on unemployment is lower now, from unemployment rate in urban areas rising to 20.3% in April-June 2020 to dropping to 7.2% in July-September 2022. “Unemployment rate is lower in BJP governments," the presentation said.

It also said that the economy was comfortably within the 6-8% GDP growth band and there were formal employment additions to the tune of Rs 15 lakh per month over the past six months. The presentation said this was a big increase from formal employment additions of Rs 6 lakh per month from April 2020 to March 2021 and Rs 10 lakh per month in the last financial year.

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