Hours before the Narendra Modi government tables it's annual Economic Survey, the Congress unveiled "the real state of the economy 2017" report, and charged the NDA government with "hiding behind the dazzle of a number called the GDP".
The report was unveiled by former prime minister Manmohan Singh and former finance minister P. Chidambaram.
Singh described the report as a "real dose of realism" and said it was obvious that the economy was not in a good shape. "This report is our contribution to the ongoing debate on where our economy is headed," he added.
Chidambaram said the real questions were where the jobs were, where the new capital investment was, and how businesses were being helped to grow. The candid and realistic assessment showed something we could not be happy about, he said, adding that between July and September 2016, only 77,000 jobs had been created, of which 50,000 were in government sector.
MP Rajiv Gowda, who led the research team that wrote the report, referred to jobs deficit and said that the government under Modi had delivered only 1.5 lakh jobs till 2016 against a promise of two crore jobs a year. Slow pace of public investment leading to slow pace of highways and infrastructure, abysmal record of railway safety, rise in stalled projects, closure of startups, low spending on Swachch Bharat, stagnation in exports, weakening rupee and demonetisation in the midst of all those were the real state of the economy, he said.
"If they want to spend money they have well designed social schemes, we will support them," Chidambaram said ahead of a budget session which is likely to be fiery.
The Congress intends bringing out such a report a day ahead of the Economic Survey as long as they are in the Opposition.
