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Five Myths About the Economy Being Propagated By the BJP
 posted by Admin on
4/22/2009 5:31:14 PM |
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It is said that if you repeat a lie often enough, people will come to start believing it. The BJP, in keeping with its scheme of propagating ill thought out polemic, has been making all manner of claims on India’s economic performance under the Congress-led UPA Government with complete disregard to the actual facts. The BJP’s claims are even more ludicrous when one considers how significantly better the UPA’s performance has been when compared to the NDA. This paper attempts to place a few facts on the table for the people of India in order to separate fact from fiction.
Myth 1: The Congress has “mismanaged the economy and it is in recession”
Fact: The BJP’s claim of the economy being in recession is both technically and substantively untrue. India’s average economic growth rate during the five years of the UPA government was 8.5%, compared to 5.8% under the NDA. Even in the last year of the UPA government, with the world sinking into recession, India’s growth remains resilient, and our growth is higher than it was during the NDA regime.
Myth 2: The Congress led government has hobbled both the organised and unorganised sectors of the Indian economy”
Fact: The growth rate of the industry and services sector increased from 5.0% and 7.7.% under the NDA to 7.8% and 10.5% under the UPA. In addition, the UPA instituted landmark programmes for the unorganised sector (such as the Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana for workers) which did not exist under the NDA.
Myth 3: The Congress fiscal indiscipline has resulted in frittering away the tremendous gains of the NDA years”
Fact: The UPA has actually brought down the fiscal deficit from 6.0% under the NDA to 4.5% under the UPA. The UPA has done this even as it has substantially increased funds for social programmes such as the SSA, NHRM, NREGA, Bharat Nirman, etc. and has given much higher sums of money to all State governments (Rs 544,000 crore more in aggregate) compared with the NDA.
Myth 4: The agriculture sector (is) suffering on account of the Congress’ gross negligence
Fact: Agriculture growth rate has actually increased significantly under the UPA government to 3..1 % as opposed to 2.3% under the NDA. UPA also made major increases in the minimum support price (MSP) to farmers; for wheat and paddy, for example, the MSP was increased by 71% and 68% respectively. The UPA also implemented the historic farm loan waiver programme benefitting 3.68 crore farmer families.
Myth 5: The UPA Government has given a step motherly treatment to BJP ruled states during its rule
Fact: The Congress led UPA Government has given more funds to the BJP ruled states than the NDA government even conceived of giving. The Congress-led UPA government increased Central Funding to the four BJP-ruled States – Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat and Rajasthan – by 63% (increase of Rs 73,824 crore) in its tenure, compared to the NDA government.
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