Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in Rajya Sabha
Taking potshot at Chidambaram, the Finance Minister said - ".....twin balance sheet problem is not something which I would want to learn from those 'very competent doctors'."
Senior Congress leader also shot back and took to Twitter:
"Strange behaviour of FM who declined, or was unable, to answer a question of Mr Anand Sharma in the RS today. Her unwillingness, or inability, to answer a straightforward question tells volumes about the FM as well as this government," he said.
"All that the FM had to do was look at that first page and explain why capex out of borrowed money was reduced from 1.4 to 0.7 per cent of GDP," he said.
From Rajya Sabha proceedings:
"Arrogant we are, is it? Masses we are, is it? I would like to tell you this, Sir. I have listened to every one of the Members and I shall definitely take each one of their comments and suggestions and answer them, but not when they are constantly throwing barbs at us saying, 'Oh! Very incompetent doctors',.....
"....'masses and classes'. I would like to answer this, Sir. What was the remedy offered in 2008-09, and what did it result in? We certainly don't want that burden on the Indian economy, for today or for the future. And, I have got specifics with which I would say this. Sir, India was very fortunate, between 2004 and 2014, to have inherited the good work of Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee as a result of which there was such a cushion available. ....
"Sir, therefore, I would like to list out some of the diagnoses of what went wrong between 2008 and 2009 and the treatment that had been offered here. Sir, the twin balance sheet problem is something which we have inherited in 2014 as a result of which a whole lot of issues have cropped up for the health of public sector banks, for the number of cronies who have run away from the country and whom we are trying to bring back. So, that twin balance sheet problem is not something which I would want to learn from those 'very competent doctors'. That is one.
"Secondly, NPAs ran into lakhs of crores of rupees. We are retrieving all of them and, in every Session of Parliament, we are standing up and answering questions on how much has been brought back and the number of people on whom we have taken action.
"NPAs ran into lakhs of crores of rupees and, of course, the cronies have run out of the country. We are getting them all back. That is another remedy offered during the crisis of 2008-09. We certainly do not want to inherit or copy those remedies of 'competent doctors'."
Sir, inflation was in double digits. Food inflation was also in
double digits, and consistently at that. I have read out the figures, but I
would talk about the fiscal deficit also during that period. Today, the FRBM
Act is being shown to us. Do you know what it is? Do you know what you
are doing to it? I would like to quote it back to ask how much of FRBM has
been violated in every year of the UPA Government, but we have not done
that. So, we have not taken the remedies offered by the 'competent
doctors'. On handling inflation, we have kept it well under four per cent all
through our rule, and under Prime Minister, Shri Modi, food inflation has
never crossed the acceptable threshhold.
Sir, I now come to data and account fudging on which we are most
often questioned.
I just like to highlight two
things here. Between 2005-06 and 2010-11, every year, there was an issue of
oil bonds. The total value of oil bonds issued was Rs.1,40,000 crore and that
compared to the GDP then made up for 1.9 per cent of the GDP then.
Imagine what it would be today! But then it was 1.9 per cent of the GDP
then. Even today, we are paying every year Rs.9,900 crore on these bonds
as interest. That was the total value of bonds for which we are paying
interest. All right, Government borrow and we have to pay interest. It is
understood. Government's liability on oil subsidy is something where we all
have to see when we are talked down to fudging of accounts. Government's
liability on oil subsidy was shifted to Oil Marketing Companies so that their
books appear nice and they don't have any kind of too much of overload.
The Oil Marketing Companies were kept with this burden. After we have
come out in 2014, we have taken that also.
"There are seven important macroeconomic indicators which show that there are green shoots in the economy... economy is not in trouble," Nirmala Sitharaman said in Lok Sabha replying to the debate on the Budget 2020-21.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman was in her combative style. She slammed former finance minister P Chidambaram for his 'incompetent doctors' overseeing the economy comment, saying she does not want to learn from those who gave "faulty remedies" and under whom FDI literally ran away and "cronies" fled the country after defaulting on bank loans.
"The first thing is that the global sentiment is in favour of India. Foreign investors continue to show confidence in India. That is why the country has attracted a net FDI of 24.4 billion US dollars from April to November in 2019-20 when all of us started wondering as to whether there is any way by which we can identify if there are any green shoots. Even between April and November of 2019-2020, there has been 24.4 billion US dollar FDI as compared to 21.2 billion
US dollars between April and November 2018-2019." - FM in Lok Sabha
No comments:
Post a Comment