Rajya Sabha MP from Assam and former State Congress president Ripun Bora on Friday said the Indian economy has been in doldrums during the 7-year tenure of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Former Assam Congress president Bora said this while addressing media persons at Rajiv Bhawan in Guwahati on Friday.
Bora said: “The top of the many promises made by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP during the 2014 election was providing government employment and self-employment opportunities to 2 crore unemployed youth every year.”
“Instead, the rate of unemployment in India at present is the highest during the last 45 years,” senior Congress leader Bora said.
“According to the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE), the rate of unemployment in India, at present, stands at 9.3% for urban areas and 6.8% in rural areas, with the total rate in the country standing at 7.6%.”
“As a result of Modi’s wrong demonetisation and GST moves, nearly 50 lakh people lost their jobs. After that, Modi’s poorly planned long-term lockdown in the face of the worldwide Covid19 pandemic left around 2 crore people engaged in different sectors without a job,” Rajya Sabha MP Bora said.
As a matter of fact, during the first 6 months of 2021, more than 2.5 crore people lost their employment, Bora claimed.
According to figures from CMIE, 7.5 crore people in India are additionally suffering from poverty while the income of 10 crore middle-class people have seen their income halved.
He s said, “During 2014, the total number of employees was 13,91,306 and in 2017, the number dropped to 11,30,000.”
“In 2018, the figure of employees was 10,90,000, in 2019, it stood at 10,30,000 and in 2020, the number stood at 9,20,000. The decrease in jobs during 7 years is 4,71,306,” Bora said.
“In 2017, the number of women employees in different government departments was 1,25,000, in 2019 it was 87,000 and in 2021, it was 72,000. A total of 53,000 women lost their jobs,” Congress leader Bora said.
Bora said, “In the central government’s civil department, the total number of sanctioned posts in 2014 was 33 lakhs, in 2018, it was 31 lakh 19 thousand and in 2021 it came down to 31 lakhs. A total of 9 lakh posts are currently lying vacant.”
He informed that in the Indian Railways, there are 15 lakh sanctioned posts and the number of vacant posts is 2.5 lakhs. In the Home department, there are 10 lakh 20 thousand sanctioned posts and the number of vacant posts is 72,000.
“As per facts gathered through RTI application, from the prime ministership of Jawaharlal Nehru to Narendra Modi, the numbers related to creation and sale of public sector enterprises show that Modi’s wrong economics, lack of foresight and proximity to Adani and Ambani led to the sorry state of the public sector,” he said.
He said 33 public sector enterprises were created during Jawaharlal Nehru’s tenure as PM and none was sold.
During Lal Bahadur Shastri’s tenure, 5 public sector enterprises were created none was sold.
During Indira Gandhi’s tenure, 66 public sector enterprises were created none was sold.
A total of 9 public sector enterprises were created during Morarji Desai’s tenure and none was sold.
The other former PMs during whose tenures, no public sector enterprise was sold but only created include: Rajiv Gandhi – 16, Biswanath Pratap Singh – 2, PV Narasimha Rao – 14, Inder Kumar Gujral – 3, HD Deve Gowda – 3.
“During Atal Behari Vajpayee’s tenure, 17 public sector enterprises were created and 7 were sold while during Dr Manmohan Singh’s tenure, 23 public sector enterprises were created and 3 were sold,” he said.
“But during Narendra Modi‘s tenure as PM, no new public sector enterprise has been created but a total of 23 public sector enterprises have been sold out,” Bora said, adding, “In 2014, profit by public sector enterprises waa Rs 88,000 crore and in 2021, it came down to Rs 26,104 crore.”
“In 2014, cash-in-hand of ONGC was Rs 1 lakh crore and in 2021, cash-in-hand is zero,” Bora said.
He also said, “While the market value of all public sector enterprises in India is Rs 13 lakh crore the market value of Reliance Industries is Rs 15 lakh crore.”
“The Modi government is indiscriminately and forcefully spending the profits and additional savings of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI),” Bora said.
Generally, a certain amount of funds comprising the profits of RBI is always kept as a security to tide over any emergency or tough economic conditions likely to arise in the country.
Even during the tough economic times in the aftermath of the 1962 Indo-China war, India-Pakistan war in 1965 and the Bangladesh war in 1970-71, the Indian government did not spend from the RBI funds, he said.
“But the Modi government, unable to create revenue with inefficient economics and administration, has chosen the easy way out by bullying the RBI and withdrawing Rs 1.76 lakh crores in 2019 and an amount of Rs 99, 122 crores in the nine months from July, 2020 to March, 2021,” he said.
“This is an inauspicious sign for the country’s economy,” Ripun Bora assereted.
“The Global Hunger Index of 2020 has placed India at 94th position among 107 countries. This reveals the picture of India globally. It is interesting that a small country like Nepal has come at number 73, Pakistan at 88, Bangladesh at 75 and Indonesia appears at 70,” Bora further said.