Mere announcement: Congress on Centre's fiscal stimulus

Congress on Monday slammed the measures unveiled by the Modi government to stimulate demand in the economy as a “fraud” on the people of the country.

“Overall, the measures announced today are merely that – announcements. There was no extra spending to boost demand and the increase in states’ capital expenditure are paltry and untimely,” Praveen Chakravarty, Chairman of the AICC Data Analytics Cell, told reporters in Delhi.

Chakravarty and AICC spokesperson Gourav Vallabh ripped apart the proposals presented by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman saying that the government is only asking its employees to spend their own money, but with conditions.

“It is your own money. The Finance Minister has put five conditions on how you can spend it, that you have to spend only on goods, that are with greater than 12% GST? It has to be 3 times more, all kinds of ridiculous conditions for spending your own money,” Chakravarty said.

Chakravarty said the “fiscal stimulus” package announced by the Centre was a clear admission that the much-hyped ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’ plan announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in May has been a “dismal failure” in protecting and reviving India’s ravaged economy.

“Unless there is additional money, the individual is not going to spend more. So, where is the question of a demand stimulus,” Chakravarty said.

Chakravarty and Vallabh wanted the government to rationalise the GST rates, increase public spending and take some concrete steps to stimulate the economy.

The Congress also dismissed the Rs 12,000 crore extra expenditure as “meaningless”, pointing out that the states have already lined up plans to spend Rs 9 lakh crore on capital expenditure for 2020-21.

“It is very clear that the Finance Minister’s intent is really to manage headlines in the belief that the economy will respond to these headlines,” Chakravarty said.