Home Minister Rajnath Singh, responding to former Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha’s criticisms of the government’s handling of the economy, said that India is one of the fastest-growing economies (“Congress hails Yashwant Sinha’s take on economy”, Sept. 28). But we must not forget facts. The problem began when the Prime Minister and the Finance Minister began to assume the role of economists and introduced massive changes. First, there was suspicion that Raghuram Rajan was asked to exit as he did not seek a second term as Governor of the Reserve Bank. Then the government introduced demonetisation, which threw many out of their jobs and hit the informal sector. Then it lowered fixed deposit rates to afford easy loans and created bad debts. The Goods and Services Tax has hammered small and medium enterprises. These are facts, and the government must not ignore criticism.
Bidyut Kumar Chatterjee,
Faridabad
First former Union Minister Arun Shourie came down heavily on the government, saying it is only “managing headlines”, not the economy. He called demonetisation the greatest blunder in 70 years. Then Subramanian Swamy cautioned that the economy is heading for a major depression and said corrective measures must to be taken immediately before it “crashes”. And now Yashwant Sinha has criticised the government. Empirical data suggest that all these critics aren’t far off the mark in their allegations. Multiple economic indicators and trends emerging from different sectors show that the economic problem is serious and difficult to ignore, even for the most ardent of Mr. Modi’s fans.
R. Sivakumar,
Chennai
