New Delhi: As debate on economic growth during UPA period gets intense, a top ranking finance ministry official said on Tuesday that if the Modi government had “allowed irresponsible fiscal deficit witnessed during UPA India can witness GDP growth of over 13 per cent.”
A controversy has broken after a committee constituted by the National Statistical Commission in a report said that the economy clocked a 10.08 per cent growth rate in 2006-07 under the then PM Manmohan Singh, the highest since liberalisation of the economy in 1991.
This has result in a heated debated between Congress and BJP as the report comes before the elections next year.
The Centre has now removed the report from the webpage on which it was first published, saying that it “should not be quoted anywhere” as it is only a draft report.
The official said that the report was removed from website as it was an informal report. “We have to study the methodology,” he said. The official said that if the government hikes its fiscal deficit from 3.3 per cent to 6.39 per cent, the government can push Rs 7 lakh money in the economy and GDP growth will come to around 13 per cent.
He said that if reckless credit growth witnessed during UPA government is also included GDP could be much more. “However, it will push the inflation to over 10 per cent which will not be good for the economy and the country,” the official said.
The official said the government will meet the fiscal deficit target for the current fiscal although there could be some slippages in the current account deficit because of high crude oil prices.
He said that comfortable forex reserve built up over the last three years will help the government deal with the volatility in oil prices in the international market.
The official said however that price fluctuation has come down significantly and reached to manageable level. “CAD will not be as good as the last year but it will not be as bad as some of the estimates because oil prices have not gone to the level people at some point of time projected. It will be pretty much in the range that we have estimated. It could be 10 basis points here or there,” he said.
On the rupee’s downward movement against the dollar, the official said that there has been zero depreciation in the last four years. Rupee is more or less at 2013 level, he said, adding that there is no proposal to raise dollar through FCNR (B). With regard to fiscal deficit, the official said the government is committed to meeting the target of 3.3 per cent.
