Modi govt. failed to deliver on 'tall' promises: Manmohan Singh

Former Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh on Sunday hit out at the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government for making "tall" promises and failing to deliver on them.

"The BJP government has messed up the economy. When Modi ji was campaigning, he made lots of tall promises. Those promises have not been fulfilled. He said the BJP, if it comes to power will provide two crore of jobs, we have not seen even two lakhs of jobs," Dr. Singh said at the 84th Congress Plenary Session here.

He also criticised the major economic reforms, namely demonetisation and Goods and Services Tax (GST), which were brought in by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley.

"The ill-thought and the ill-considered legislation with regard to demonetisation and hastily put forward legislation for GST have destroyed many jobs. They have created problems for small and medium industry and the informal sector," he said.

Dr. Singh further quoted the Economic Survey and stated, "Just when the world economy has risen steadily from a growth rate of 2.8 percent in 2014 to a projected growth rate of 3.8 percent in 2018, the Indian economy has decoupled itself from the world economy. The main challenges faced by economy include education, health, agriculture and the employment".

According to Dr. Singh, real agricultural growth has stagnated in the last four years, and the Economic Survey itself brings out the inadequacies of the approach of the BJP government in solving social and economic problems in the country.

The former Prime Minister lashed out at his present counterpart, claiming that Modi has made "jumla-type statements".

"I would only say that the BJP government made tall promises. Modi ji himself said we will double farmers' incomes in six years time. If you have to double farmers incomes in six years time, you need a growth rate of 12 percent per annum as the minimum. And that is unthinkable. Therefore, it is one of those statements, which is merely a jumla-type statements, which is not likely to be achieved and Modi ji himself recognises that these are tall promises. Two crore jobs per annum is one of those promises, which again is a pipe dream mooted by the Modi government," he added.

Dr. Manmohan Singh also asserted that India's defence expenditure is inadequate.

"One finds today that the defence expenditure of our country is no more than 1.6 percent of our Gross Domestic Product (GDP), far too inadequate to meet the challenges that our security apparatus faces and needs," Dr. Singh concluded.