Jayati Ghosh, renowned economist and a professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University, said that the current state of the Indian economy was worse than what it was during 2008.
Prof. Ghosh added that demonetisation of ₹500 and ₹1,000 notes and Good and Services Tax (GST) dealt a body blow to the economy and the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) sector was the worst hit.
Prof. Ghosh was speaking at a seminar on ‘State of Indian Economy — Cause, Implications and Remedies’ organised by the Visakhapatnam division of Insurance Corporation Employees’ Union (ICEU) here on Thursday.
‘Investments falling’
“Investments in all sectors are falling, causing massive unemployment. The so-called growth in relying on unpaid labour, divisions across castes and lower wages is unprecedented. While there was a supposed policy paralysis under the UPA regime, the decisions taken by the NDA Government to implement demonetisation and GST have wreaked havoc in the country by destroying the informal economic activity and small and medium enterprises,” Prof. Ghosh said.
Public spending
“The remedy to the financial crisis lies in more public spending, creating employment, meeting the demand needs and increasing public investments,” Prof. Ghosh said.
Prof. Ghosh suggested that levying a 2% wealth tax, an inheritance tax on individuals having a wealth of ₹500 crore, reducing taxes forgone to corporates, taxing multinational companies and scrapping GST would help increase the government’s income.
Prof. K.V. Ramana, former Vice-Chancellor of Andhra University, presided over the seminar.
ICEU president M. Kameswari and general secretary N. Ramanachalam were also present.
