Cannot apply state model of growth at centre: Yashwant Sinha

Senior BJP leader Yashwant Sinha Thursday ruled out the idea of replicating a state's model of growth at the national level.

Sinha said economic policies of the central government include a number of elements that the state government does not handle.

"Let me make this very clear. Because there are a number of national issues which a state government does not deal with. Whether you can transpose a state model at the national level? No," Sinha said on the sidelines of an event here.

"Foreign exchange, who deals with it? The central government... Interest rates, who deals with it? RBI and central government... Foreign trade? The centre... Current account deficit is a problem for the central government not for the respective state governments," he said.

Asked whether he considers the economic model of growth in Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-ruled Gujarat or the Janata Dal United (JD-U)-run Bihar better, Sinha said: "Overall economic policies for a government include elements with which the state governments do not deal."

"When you are talking of a national level, you have to include these issues including the markets."

He said that in service delivery sector and in areas like agriculture, rural development, health and education, the policies of the state governments play a key role.

On the development model in Bihar, he said: "The Nitish Kumar-Sushil Modi model worked well as any model would have worked well in the state."

"The nadir which we had reached (in Bihar) there was only one way up," said Sinha, an MP from Bihar.

He said that with the gross domestic product (GDP) of the country growing at below five percent, "the question which people are putting to us is whether the Indian growth story is over".

He said that in order to have a "sustainable, durable economic growth model" for the country, it is not favourable to have a "scorching high growth rate which will then fall flat" which is the case with the present United Progressive Alliance government.

"During the NDA (National Democratic Alliance) period, we may not have grown at a scorching rate, but there was a security in the economy," Sinha said.