Rahul mocks Modi Govt over Economic Survey

Congress President Rahul Gandhi on Monday mocked Prime Minister Narendra Modi led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government after the Economic Survey 2018 was tabled in Parliament by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley.

The Gandhi scion took to Twitter to corner government and said despite government's claims of Acche Din, industrial, agricultural, Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and job growth has declined.

"The #EconomicSurvey2018 says, #AccheDin are here, except for these minor hiccups: Industrial Growth is ?, Agricultural Growth is ?, GDP Growth is ?, JOB Growth is ? "Don't worry Be Happy!"," Gandhi tweeted.

It is notable that riding on Acche Din (Good Times) slogan, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi rode to power in 2014.

The survey notes that the series of major reforms which were undertaken over the past year will allow real GDP growth to reach 6.75 percent this fiscal and will rise to 7.0 to 7.5 percent in 2018-19.

It adds that there has been a fifty percent increase in the number of indirect taxpayers post the introduction of Goods and Services Tax (GST).

The survey further observed that the economy witnessed a gradual transition from a period of high and variable inflation to more stable prices in the last four years. Headline inflation measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI) remained under control for the fourth successive year.

The foreign exchange reserves grew by 14.1 percent on a year-on-year basis from end of Dec 2016 to end of Dec 2017. The forex reserves as per 2016-17 were estimated at USD 370 billion. It grew to USD 409.4 billion in 2017-18.

Industry players from different sectors welcomed the optimism shown by the survey, while raising concrete demands for their respective sectors, to realise the desired economic growth at the rate of 7-7.5% of GDP in FY 2018-19.