Low GDP forecast means govt can't deny slowdown: Congress
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The Opposition party called for «radical action» in the upcoming budget «to dispel these clouds of growth slowdown and investment chill» and underscored the need for higher income support for India's poor.
Referring to the official forecast of GDP growth in FY25 coming down to 6.4%, AICC communications in-charge Jairam Ramesh, in an official statement, said: «This is a four-year low, and a sharp deceleration compared to the 8.2% growth recorded in FY24. It is even lower than the recent RBI estimate of 6.6% growth — which itself marked a reduction from the earlier projection of 7.2%. In a few short weeks, the bottom has fallen out of the Indian economy, with the all-important manufacturing sector simply refusing to expand as it should.»
He added, «This is the gloomy backdrop to the upcoming Union budget for FY 25-26. As the Indian National Congress has consistently advocated, radical action is necessary to dispel these clouds of growth slowdown and investment chill. Income support for India's poor, higher MGNREGA wages, and increased MSPs are the need of the hour, as is a drastic simplification of the comically complex GST regime and income tax relief for the middle classes.»
Maintaining that in the last 10 years, India's consumption story has «gone into reverse swing» and emerged as the biggest pain point for the economy,
