'UPA rule a saga of complete inaction, paralysis in decision-making': Yashwant Sinha on IMF projections

Taking a jibe at Finance Minister P. Chidambaram over the International Monetary Fund's growth projections of 3.75 percent for the current fiscal year, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Yashwant Sinha on Thursday said these ten years of the UPA Government is nothing but a very sorry saga of complete inaction and complete paralysis in decision-making.

"The only point I would like to make is perhaps Mr. Chidambaram is an expert in sub five percent growth rate. And he is not only an expert in that; he is also an expert in bringing growth rates down from astronomical heights to this level. This is what he did in between 1996-98, when he brought down the growth rate from 7.8 percent to 4.8 percent the next year," said Sinha.

"And these ten years of the UPA Government is nothing but a very sorry saga of complete inaction, complete paralysis in decision-making and the results are therefore all of us to see," he added.

Sinha, who was the country's Finance Minister during the NDA regime, termed the IMF projections on economic growth to be a very serious issue.

"Not only the IMF's prediction of the growth rate this year as well as the next year, but also the fact that they have said that the fiscal deficit this year is going to go up to 8.5 percent of the GDP. And they have said that this is going to be caused by the contraction of the growth rate, by the enormous amount of subsidies and the devaluation of the rupee that we are witnessing," he said.

In its World Economic Outlook report, the IMF projected an average growth rate of about 3.75 per cent in market prices for India in 2013-14, which is expected to pick up to 5.1 per cent next year.

India's GDP growth slowed to 5 percent in the year ended March 2013 from an average of 8 percent over the past decade.