The government abandoned the principles that brought about the economic liberalisation. There was economic mismanagement and financial indiscipline, and there was widespread corruption, the Centre has said.
New Delhi: The UPA government had “inherited a healthy economy but made it non-performing in 10 years,” the Centre said in its comparative White Paper on the 10 years of the UPA and the decade under Prime Minister Narendra Modi. In an all-out attack on the Congress ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, the Centre accused the UPA government, which went out of office in 2014, of leaving behind “an unenviable legacy of a structurally weaker economy and a pervasive atmosphere of despondency”.
Calling it a “lost decade”, the White Paper tabled by Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in parliament this evening, said the UPA had left a trail of economic mismanagement and “short-sighted handling of the public finances… and undermining the macroeconomic foundations”.
The government abandoned the principles that brought about the economic liberalisation. There was economic mismanagement and financial indiscipline, and there was widespread corruption, the Centre has said, slamming the Manmohan Singh government on a day he finishes his Rajya Sabha tenure.
“In 2004, when the UPA government began its term, the economy was growing at 8 per cent (with industry and services sector growth above 7 per cent each and a resuscitating agriculture sector growth above 9 per cent in FY04) amidst a benign world economic environment,” read the 50-page White Paper.
But instead of taking the reforms further and consolidating the gains, the UPA only “took credit” for the high growth brought about by the “lagged effects of the reforms of the NDA government and favourable global conditions”.
The White Paper said the average annual inflation rate between 2004 and 2014 was around 8.2% and accused the UPA of doing nothing to contain the high inflation.
After pursuing policies that created a huge fiscal deficit, the UPA government borrowed heavily from outside but used the funds in an unproductive manner. Infrastructure was neglected, development programnmes were mis-managed. Even the social sector schemes – which the UPA prided itself on — were laden with unspent funds, the Centre said on an issue that’s likely to draw a strong reaction from the Congress.
“Across the 14 major social and rural sector ministries, a cumulative ₹ 94,060 crore of budgeted expenditure was left unspent” over the 10 years. This, the Centre said, amounted to 6.4 per cent of the cumulative budget, compared to the 1 per cent left unspent by the NDA government over the last decade.
The UPA government, it added, had also ignored defence preparedness and health expenditure, leaving it a “pain point” for Indian households.
A chunk of the White Paper was devoted to the mismanagement and scams that plagued the defence sector. “By 2012, shortage of combat-ready equipment and ammunition was a chronic issue plaguing our forces. One would also recall the long-drawn process of procurement of fighter aircraft that never reached any conclusion. Even the decision to provide bullet-proof jackets and night vision goggles to Indian Army soldiers was kept hanging for years,” the White Paper read.