The government has put the derailed economy back on track, contained inflation and improved investor confidence in the last one year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said Tuesday while promising to do more in the coming days to meet “high expectations” of people.
“Economic growth has been revived, and (India) is amongst the fastest in the world. Inflation is substantially down. Fiscal prudence has been restored. Confidence is up. Foreign investments have increased.
“This positive outlook is endorsed by major rating agencies and international institutions across the world,” he said in an open letter to citizens on achievements of his government on the economic front in the last one year.
The government, he said, has implemented the pending “bold reforms” like decontrol of diesel, raising Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) limit on insurance and defence and is moving ahead to roll out the Goods and Services Tax (GST).
“One year ago, you had entrusted me with the task of building a new India and putting a derailed economy back on track. We have achieved a lot,” he said, adding “this is just the beginning. There is much more to be done and I know your expectations are high.”
The Indian economy is expected to grow at over 8 percent in the current fiscal, up from 7.4 percent in 2014-15. The fiscal deficit is budgeted to come down to 3.9 percent of the GDP this fiscal, from 4 per cent a year ago.
“Bold reforms pending for decades have been implemented”, Modi said, stressing that the benefits of growth should reach all sections of society, especially poor, farmers and women.
“Economic growth benefits all Indians. Growth, however, has meaning only if it empowers the poor, farmers, women, as well as middle and neo-middle classes of all communities. To enable us to continue paying remunerative prices to our farmers, we secured a permanent ‘peace clause’ at the WTO,” he said.
He further said that through a financial inclusion drive a record 15 crore plus bank accounts have been opened and deposits of over Rs. 15,800 crore mobilised.
An affordable social security system including pension, life insurance and accident insurance has already witnessed 6.75 crore enrolments in its first week, he added.
MUDRA has been set up with a corpus of Rs. 20,000 crore to help small businessmen, who despite being the biggest job creators have historically been starved of credit, he said.
In order to combat the menace of black money, the Prime Minister said, the government has set up a Special Investigation Team (SIT) and successfully piloted a new stringent law in Parliament.
