Former Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Raghuram Rajan questioned the GDP data released by the government saying why is India not able to generate enough jobs for youngsters if the economy is growing at such a fast pace.
He said that he has his doubts on the growth of the Indian economy.
In a video clip shared on instagram by Bikramjeet Dutta (@duttabikramjeet), which was later reshared by Congress and its leader Supriya Shrinate, Rajan was heard saying why there aren’t more jobs and why not much investment has taken place if the economy is actually growing that fast.
Former RBI Governor said that there are some real concerns in case of such a fast economic growth.
“Are these growth numbers real? Even the larger economy is in doubt if the growth numbers aren’t real. There are some discrepancies which one has to worry about which is if we’re growing so fast, why aren’t we creating more jobs? More good jobs? And, why is investment not taking place? Why are our industrialists so reluctant to invest? Why is FDI not coming in much bigger ways? We can play around with the numbers for a long time and have one view or the other,” he said.
He went onto ask that is the government doing what is necessary to create more jobs, and questioned what measures are being taken to stay at the forefront in the sectors where we have a presence.
“And, if the answer is no to both questions then I think we have a fundamental problem. Because this is our moment of population dividend. If we’re not creating enough jobs for all, then we risk losing out the population dividend,” he said.
Former Infosys CFO Mohandas Pai also shared the video tagging Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He claimed that a fake narrative is being created on jobs by vested interests.
“PM @narendramodi Sir A fake narrative on jobs is being created by vested interests. Sadly @officialepfo has stopped giving monthly Jobs data which your office had started 80 months go. The data gave total new jobs, by gender, age groups. Industry, States. Please revive,” Pai added.
Earlier, former Finance Secretary Subhash Chandra Garg had also questioned the GDP numbers. In a media interview, he questioned whether the 7.8% figure accurately reflects the pace of economic activity, arguing that the revised comparison base makes the headline growth rate difficult to assess.
Later on, Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) has clarified India’s GDP estimation methodology, the negative manufacturing deflator and the revisions made to the first-quarter GDP estimates.
