UPA plunged economy into a crisis: White Paper

THE CONGRESS-LED UPA government had plunged the economy into a "crisis" in 2014, and it took "enormous" effort by the Narendra Modi government to stabilise it and set it on the recovery/growth path, the finance ministry said on Thursday in a White Paper on the Economy tabled in Parliament.

With the electoral battle lines drawn, the 59-page document narrated the "unenviable legacy" left behind by the previous dispensation in great detail, and asserted that it took "tough decisions" to transform the country from the "fragile five" to the "top five" in a decade.

The White Paper said, "We continue to undertake measures to unearth black money and to discourage recourse to it", but avoided any reference to the decsion to demonetise the bulk of the currency in circulation on November 8, 2016.

ALSO, THERE WASN'T any explicit comparison of the economic growth rates between the 10 years of the Modi regime and the previous decade. The Covid19 pandemic had wreaked havoc on the economy during the NDA government, but the recovery was smart, and the fiscal cost of it controlled.

The White Paper said there is "miles to go and mountains to scale before we sleep" as the destination is to make India a developed nation by 2047."It is our Kartavya Kaal," said the paper.

The paper tabled in the Lok Sabha by finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman said the UPA's governance record was marred by price instability, banking crisis, external vulnerability, messy public finances with underreporting of deficits and lack of asset creation.