Taking on former Union Finance Minister P. Chidambaram for his criticism of the state of the economy, Minister of State for Finance Anurag Thakur said that it was resilient and would rebound in the times ahead. He cited international agencies’ projections of India as the only ‘major economy’ expected to record a double digit growth in 2021-22.
“Is the Indian economy an island in isolation; have other major economies not faced a GDP contraction? Are you not aware that France, Germany, Italy and the U.K. contracted by 8.2%, 4.9%, 8.9% and 9.9% respectively. Canada, Russia, South Africa and the U.S. too have seen contraction in their GDP in the past year,” he stated, referring to the 7.3% contraction in GDP in 2020-21.
“Consistent reforms have ensured strong fundamentals through these difficult times… [so] India had a swift rebound from a contraction of 24.4% in the 1st quarter of FY 2020-21 to a growth of 1.6% in the 4th quarter.” India had been resilient despite…