Kaapi with DC: Sops doing little to boost economy?

Bengaluru: With the country's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growing by just 4.5 per cent in the July to September quarter and  unemployment  on the rise, the urban youth has little to look forward to.

While the BJP government at the Centre has been trying to boost the economy by relaxing regulations and offering cheap cars and housing loans, it has not succeeded in increasing demand and the country continues to experience its lowest growth rate since 2013. The issue is clearly worrying people Deccan Chronicle found, while listening into a chat between a couple of Bengalureans.

“One of the major problems the young are grappling with today is  unemployment.  Despite the slump in the economy, the current dispensation’s brazen claim that there is nothing with it saddens most of us. Industries are not doing well and  the layoffs in major companies have created a grim situation,” said Mr Babu PK, an entrepreneur,

“The biggest jolt to the economy was demonetisation. The Indian economy was doing fairly well before. The unorgansiaed sector was badly hit and has still not recovered. Fresh graduates are finding it hard to find jobs even as they need to repay education loans,” deplored Mr Eashwar Amarnath, a fitness coach.

He believes that  acknowledgment of the problem is the first step towards improving things.

“But the finance minister says though the economy has slowed down there is no recession. Cannot the ministry read its own NSO data?" he asked. While the erratic rainfall is believed to be one of the reasons for the soaring price of onions, there is apprehension that the agriculture sector itself is in peril. In 2018 the then finance minister, Arun Jaitley launched Operation Green to stabilise the prices of TOP (Tomato, Onion and Potato), the National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India Ltd was appointed as the nodal agency and  Rs 500 crore was  allotted for the project, but none of these measures seem to have made any impact.

Mr Babu  recalled that the BJP  lost Delhi in 1998 after the onion prices rose sharply. “A few years ago, farmers threw onions on the road. The reason was lack of storage. What did the government do to improve the agri-infrastructure of the country?  It only imported onions from Egypt," he noted, leaving the discussion there.