\Former Finance Minister and Congress leader P Chidambaram.
| Photo Credit: ANI

The White Paper by the Narendra Modi government on the state of the economy under the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) is a “hatchet job” and “a white lie paper,” former Finance Minister P. Chidambaram asserted on February 9.

“It is a white lie paper. Even the authors will not claim that it is an academic, well-researched or scholarly paper. It is a political exercise intended to damn the previous government and hide the present government’s broken promises, monumental failures and betrayal of the poor,” Mr. Chidambaram said.

Parliament Budget Session – February 9 updates

The former Finance Minister said no other government had made so many “wild promises” as the Modi government and then broken them “without an expression of regret”.

Mr. Chidambaram pointed out that the Modi government had promised two crore jobs every year, bring back black money parked abroad in 100 days, put ₹15 lakh in every citizen’s bank account, bring down prices of petrol, diesel at ₹35 a litre, build 100 smart cities by 2022, double farmers’ income, house to every family by 2022 and achieve a $5 trillion economy by 2023-24.

“In fact, the government laughed them away as election jumlas,” he said, adding, “The paper released today is not a white paper; it is a paper that is intended to whitewash the many sins and commissions of the NDA government in the last 10 years”.

Also Read | Congress ‘black paper’ on ‘Modi government’s failures’ focuses on unemployment and neglect of non-BJP States

Fiscal deficit

Giving a comparative analysis, the former Finance Minister said fiscal deficit was 4.5% in the last year of the UPA regime and 5.8% in the last year of the NDA; household saving as percentage of GDP was 23% under the UPA and 19% under the NDA; national debt under the UPA was ₹58.6 lakh crore while it is ₹173.3 lakh crore under the NDA.

“The Indian economy recorded the ‘golden period of growth’ in the three years between 2005-06 and 2007-08 when the GDP grew at 9% or more at an average of 9.5%,” he added.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman tables white paper in the Lok Sabha on February 8, 2024. Photo: Sansad TV via ANI

As promised in her Interim Budget, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman laid a White Paper on the economy in the Lok Sabha on Thursday, outlining that the UPA’s 10 years in office created “an inheritance of loss” for the country and the Narendra Modi-led NDA government “rescued the economy from a state of crisis, despair and paralysis”.

Coming two days before the Seventeenth Lok Sabha is adjourned for the last time, the 47-page paper with a few pages of data annexures, sought to make a case that the present government had rejuvenated the economy from the UPA’s policy stasis and misgovernance to infuse it with “dynamism and growth, and hope in the people”.

The paper attributed the few UPA years of high growth to reforms undertaken by the Atal Bihari Vajpayee-led NDA government, and blamed the Manmohan Singh regime not only for being fiscally profligate and opting for “quick fixes” like farm loan waivers, but also for failing to deliver on reforms such as Aadhaar and the Goods and Services Tax (GST).

Parliament Budget Session | Follow LIVE updates on February 08, 2024

“When the NDA government took over the reins in 2014, the economy was in bad shape, nay, crisis. We faced the hydra-headed challenge of fixing an economy mismanaged for a decade, and restoring its fundamentals to sound health,” the paper noted, listing out improvements in various macro-economic and infrastructure indicators such as inflation, forex reserves and highway building pace.

“Our government refrained from bringing out a White Paper on the poor state of affairs then. That would have given a negative narrative and shaken the confidence of all, including investors,” the paper said. One of the objectives of bringing out this paper now, the Ministry said, was to “generate a wider, more informed debate on the paramountcy of national interest and fiscal responsibility in matters of governance over political expediency”.

“Then, we were among the ‘fragile five’ economies; now, we are among the ‘top five’ economies, making the third highest contribution to global growth every year,” the paper said, stressing that the economic policy focus has been to undo “the damage of the previous decade”.

“Now that we have stabilised the economy and set it on a recovery and growth path, it is necessary to place in the public domain the seemingly insurmountable challenges — left behind as a legacy by the UPA government,” the paper stated.

Foreign exchange crunch

Alleging that the UPA created a foreign exchange crunch that “reeked of a re-run of 1991 when India had to approach the IMF for assistance during a Balance of Payments crisis”, the paper said by the end of September 2013, forex reserves were just enough to finance little over 6 months of imports, down from 17 months at the end of March 2004. As of January 2024, reserves were sufficient for 10.6 months of imports, it said.

While the paper listed out some of the structural reforms undertaken by what it refers to as “our government”, such as the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, liberalisation of foreign direct investment (FDI) norms and GST, it makes no mention of the demonetisation of high-value currency notes in 2016 that was aimed at denting corruption and weeding out black money. However, it does state that “We continue to undertake measures to unearth black money and to discourage recourse to it”.

Alleging “pervasive corruption” under UPA’s watch that had “shaken people’s confidence”, the paper shares the “current status” of 15 “high-profile” “scams”, including the ones pertaining to coal block allocation, 2G spectrum, Commonwealth Games, and deals like Aircel-Maxi, Antrix-Devas and INX Media.

Also Read | Union Budget | Indian economy witnessed profound positive transformation in last 10 years, says FM Nirmala Sitharaman

While some of those cases are still “under investigation” such as the “Land for Jobs” case in the Railways and the purchase of Hawk Aircraft, the paper is silent on the current status in the procurement corruption allegations pertaining to Augusta Westland Helicopter and Pilatus Basic Trainer Aircraft.

“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,” the Ministry emphasised.

The “disconnect between India’s policy planners and priorities for the country was so stark” that the people gave an “overwhelming mandate” in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls to the NDA to “take charge of the reins, reverse the staggering economic and fiscal muddle that the country was mired in and restore its dynamism and optimism.”

“Our government, unlike its predecessor, invested in the foundations of the economy along with building a sturdy superstructure. Looking back at the last 10 years, we can say with humility and satisfaction that we have successfully overcome the challenges left behind by the previous government. That said, we are not resting on our laurels. There are miles to go and mountains to scale before we sleep,” the paper concluded.

Elamaram Kareem, CPI (M) MP from Kerala, says that there is no mention of the 60-crore workforce of India in the Bill. Only with Ayodhya, they cannot overcome the next election, he says. 

AITC MP Jawhar Sircar asks the government what is the GDP growth now. We get the impression that it is at its highest level, but this is not a fact, he says. The growth during UPA’s tenure has been over 8.1%, while the growth under this government has been 5.5%, he says. This year it has reached 7.3%, but it does not destroy the averages, he adds, saying that we need to be clear about statistics instead of misleading the people. 

He says that there is a feeling as if everything began from 2014, and before then was an era of complete darkness, and counters it saying that as mature people we cannot repeat these sentiments. We have to get out of this ‘before Modi and after Modi’ mindset, he says. 

He highlights that right now the total domestic debt of India stands at Rs. 164 lakh crores.

He also asserts that several States are being affected by what he calls ‘fiscal terrorism,’ including West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. He says that there are cuts in all domains, and the money is going towards capital expenditure, to the capitalist class which is contributing only 10% to the GDP. 

Union Minister of State for Science and Technology Jitendra Singh in Parliament on February 06, 2024.

The Centre on Monday said that provisions of the newly constituted research board, Anusandhan National Research Foundation (ANRF), had come into effect and announced the appointment of Abhay Karandikar, Secretary, Department of Science and Technology (DST), as interim CEO of the body on Tuesday.

The ANRF aims to be a research funding organisation that will have a corpus of ₹50,000 crore at the outset with nearly ₹36,000 crore projected to come from the private sector. The aim of this new funding body is to “…provide high level strategic direction for research, innovation and entrepreneurship in the fields of natural sciences including mathematical sciences, engineering and technology, environmental and earth sciences, health and agriculture, and scientific and technological interfaces of humanities and social sciences…”

The DST in a press statement on Tuesday said that “…provisions of the ANRF Act had been brought into force on February 5, 2024”.  Earlier this week, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman provisioned ₹2,000 crore towards the ANRF for the financial year 2024-25.

The ANRF Act was passed by both Houses of Parliament in 2023. However, the ‘rules’ accompanying the text of the Act are yet to be made public. Mr. Karandikar told The Hindu that the rules had been “notified” and would be done “30 days after public notification”.

“The ANRF act coming into force is a heartening piece of news for scientists, researchers, innovators and startups. For the first time after Independence, under the leadership of the Honourable PM Shri Narendra Modi, India now has a National Research Foundation called Anusandhan”, said, Mr. Jitendra Singh, Science Minister, posted on X on Tuesday.

The Department of Science and Technology (DST) would be the administrative department of NRF and led by a Governing Board consisting of eminent researchers and professionals across disciplines. The Prime Minister will be the ex-officio President of the Board and the Union Minister of Science & Technology & Union Minister of Education will be the ex-officio Vice-Presidents. NRF’s functioning will be governed by an Executive Council chaired by the Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government of India.

The ANRF subsumes the existing Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB), established in 2008, and in many respects identical to the ANRF. The rationale is that the ANRF had an “…expanded mandate and covers activities over and above the activities of SERB,” the press statement added.

PM Narendra Modi replies to Motion of Thanks to President’s address in Lok Sabha on Wednesday, February 5, 2024

Prime Minister Narendra Modi replied to the debate on the Motion of Thanks to the President’s address in the Lok Sabha, targetting the Opposition for condemning his government’s schemes. Asserting that BJP will win 370 seats on its own in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections he attacked the Opposition on issues like nepotism, corruption, inflation and casteism. Listing his two terms’ achievements, he also envisioned a pathway to make India the 3rd largest economy in his third term.

Earlier in the day, the Public Examinations (Prevention of Unfair Means) Bill was introduced in the Lok sabha and the Finance Minister presented the interim Budget for Jammu and Kashmir, following which the House resumed discussion on the President’s address. 

Rajya Sabha took up Question Hour and continued its discussion on the Motion of Thanks on the President’s Address. Union Minister Bhupendra Yadav introduced the Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Amendment Bill, 2024 Bill to amend the Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1974. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman also introduced statements pertaining to the supplementary demand for grants for 2023-24, for both the centre and the State of Jammu and Kashmir, as well as the interim budge for J&K for 2024-25. 

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