Economy in deep crisis: CPI(M) on low GDP rate

The Communist Party of India (Marxist) on Thursday cornered the Centre over the reported decline in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth while saying that the economy was in deep crisis.

"Economy is in deep crisis. The government has failed utterly. The figures show how the government fall on its face," CPI(M) leader Brinda Karat told ANI.

Earlier, former finance minister P. Chidambaram on Thursday said the economy is going down rapidly under the Narendra Modi led government.

"Economy is going down rapidly and if corrective measures are not taken then economy will decline further," Chidambaram said.

The former finance minister also outlined three indicators of vibrant economy- investment to GDP ratio, credit growth and numbers of jobs created in which the union government miserably failed.

Asserting that nothing is in the right course, he further hit out at the Centre for 'fooling the people of India'.

Earlier, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi slammed the Centre saying that falling GDP and rising unemployment are the fundamental failure of the government.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee also slammed the central government and stated that her apprehensions about demonetisation have proved to be correct.

"When the time demonetisation was announced by the Central Government, I had voiced my concern that the country would have to face severe loss of jobs and drastic decline in productivity due to demonetisation. My apprehension is now proven to be true," Mamata wrote on her Facebook post.

According to statistic, the GDP slowed sharply to 6.1 percent in the three months ending March 31. The GDP was 6.1 per in the January-March quarter, the immediate three months after the demonetisation was announced on November 8, 2016.

The data released by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) revealed that the Gross Value Added (GVA) slipped sharply to 6.6 per cent in the last financial year ended March 31, from 7.9 per cent growth in 2015-16.

The demonetisation seems to have impacted the Gross value added (GVA) in the third as well as fourth quarter of 2016-17 which slipped to 6.7 per cent and 5.6 per cent respectively, from 7.3 per cent and 8.7 per cent.

Almost all sectors, with the exception of agriculture, showed decline in the aftermath of demonetisation.