New Delhi, July 23 (IANS): India has become the most attractive destination for global investors and its GDP growth has moved much ahead of the inflation rate, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh said on Monday.
Speaking at a meeting of the Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) here, he admitted that there were some problems with demonetisation and the implementation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) but issues have now been sorted out and people are aware of the benefits of the two moves.
“India’s GDP (Gross Domestic Product) had been half of the inflation rate four years ago. But it has gone up rapidly in the last four years. The GDP rate now has moved much ahead of the current inflation rate. There has not been a single moment in the last four years when the GDP growth was lower than the inflation rate.” “This is a big difference you can see now,” he said.
Asserting that India has now become the most attractive destination for world’s investors, he said “There was a time four years ago when only two mobile factories were running in India. Now, the number of these factories has reached to 120.”
This is an indication that the whole world has belief and confidence in India’s economy, said the senior BJP leader, adding India has gained a new height in ease of doing business and it jumped from 142 to 100th place.
In four years, there has been drastic financial inclusion during our government as the people living in huts have been the part of economy because of opening of their bank accounts. “55 per cent of the total bank accounts opened across the world are in India only.”
Describing the benefits of government’s digitisation scheme, Rajnath Singh said subsidies of 431 government run schemes amounting to over Rs 365,000 crore have been transferred to the bank accounts of beneficiaries through Digital Payment Direct Transfer policy so that mediators could not do any wrong doings. On the occasion, the minister urged over 6.5 crore retail businessmen of the coutnry to unite with the farmers so that no political party could avoid them.
Taking a veiled dig at former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Rajnath Singh said economic growth was dependent on a realistic, not economist, Prime Minister.
“There is no lack of economic potential in India. This potential was observed by our former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Our incumbent Prime Minister
Narendra Modi also observed it and has been trying his best to do in that direction. Neither Atalji was economist nor Modiji is. There is no need to be an economist to give country’s economy a new height. It is necessary to be realistic,” Rajnath Singh said.
“In my view, no matter if Prime Minister and the people sitting in the government are not economists, they should be realistic. The country can grow fast if they are realistic.”
