'Policies should be designed without hampering growth'

Two days after he warned that demonetisation would slash growth rates by 2%, former prime minister Manmohan Singh said economic policies should be designed without hampering the growth process.

“Economic policies have to be designed in a manner that neither the redistributive process fills up public financing and nor the growth process is hampered,” Singh said on Saturday in his valedictory address at the 111th Annual Session of the PHD Chambers of Commerce and Industry.

Singh’s remarks come two days after he trashed Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s decision to scrap Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes as “organised loot and legalised plunder”.

The former prime minister had told the Rajya Sabha on Thursday that demonetisation would put back the GDP by two percentage points.

Addressing the industry chambers, Singh said though India was growing at an annual rate of 7 to 7.5%, significant increase in investments was required to sustain the pace.