In an interview around the time the National Statistical Office said that the economy had grown at only 1.6% in January-March quarter, Fina...
In an interview around the time the National Statistical Office said that the economy had grown at only 1.6% in January-March quarter, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman asserted that all that sufficient measures had already been taken to restore growth in the proposals under Union Budget 2021-’22 and three tranches under the Atmanirbhar Bharat.
On Monday, this was topped up by new measures to support the economy, This time there was a focus on the healthcare and tourism sectors.
There can be no room for complacency.
First, there has been a secular decline in growth since the first quarter of 2018-’19. Gross domestic product growth declined from 7.1% during the first quarter of 2018-’19 (even prior to Covid-19) to 1.6 % during the fourth quarter of 2020-’21 leaving aside the negative growth of the first (-24.4%) and the second (-7.4%) quarters of 2020-’21. With declining growth, the per capita income slumped to the level of Rs 99,694 in 2020-’21 from Rs 1,00,268 in 2017-’18. In fact, India’s per capita GDP is now what it used to be in 2016-’17 – the year when the slide started.
Second, Covid-19 has severely impacted not only GDP growth but also several other macro aggregates that have caused a huge demand deficiency. Lockdown to contain Covid-19...
