Brushing aside concerns about a dip in economic growth during the March quarter, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Thursday said cumulative factors have been responsible for GDP decline in the fourth quarter of financial year 2016-17.
According to the latest GDP figures, the country's economic growth unexpectedly slumped to 6.1 per cent, its lowest in more than two years, in the March quarter, while the overall growth for the financial year was at 7.1 per cent.
However, Jaitley said the current seven to eight per cent growth rate is fairly reasonable by Indian standards and good by global standards. He also downplayed the effect of demonetisation saying, "We restored credibility in the economy."
The finance minister went ahead and explained the demonetisation drive taken up by the government in November 2016 had three distinct benefits.
"There were three distinct benefits from demonetisation. Firstly, there is greater movement towards digitisation, tax payers' base has increased and a message has gone loud and clear that it is no longer safe to deal in cash," the Minister said while addressing media on completion of three years of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance.
He added that all these steps are towards 'Operation Clean Money'.
Addressing a press conference, the finance minister added that resolving NPAs, encouraging private sector investment are currently the major challenges before the Centre.
On Air India, he said the civil aviation ministry will have to explore mechanisms for privatisation of the airlines.
