New Delhi: The Congress on Sunday hit out at the Narendra Modi government over the prevailing condition of the Indian economy. Asserting that the last 10 years have seen “highly detrimental economic trends”, the Congress on Sunday said the monsoon had receded but at least “three dark clouds” of languishing private sector investment, stagnating manufacturing and decline in real wages and productivity for labourers still loom over the Indian economy.
Taking on Prime Minister Modi, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge said his “stale lectures” repeating the same old spins cannot gloss over his “outright failures” affecting every aspect of the country’s economy. “Modinomics is a curse to India’s economy," he said on X, raising issues like household indebtedness, price rise and the manufacturing sector’s woes, and claimed that “Make in India has spectacularly failed”.
“Narendra Modi ji, your stale lectures repeating the same old spins cannot gloss over your outright failures affecting every aspect of India's economy!" he said. Kharge said household liabilities/indebtedness has grown by a whopping 241 per cent from 2013-14 to 2022-23 in actual terms.
Household debt as a percentage of GDP is at an all-time high of 40 per cent, he said.
Kharge pointed out that household savings are at a 50-year low and that since the Covid-19 pandemic, the consumption of Indian families is more than their income. “The cost of home-cooked veg thali increased by 11 per cent in September 2024 compared to last year. The BJP-imposed price rise and destruction of the unorganised sector is responsible for this mess!” he said.
“In 10 years, ‘Make in India’ has spectacularly failed as the gains of India's rising exports during Congress-UPA have been discarded by your policies,” Kharge said.
“India’s Export Growth — Congress-UPA: 2004 to 2009 — 186.59 per cent, 2009 to 2014 — 94.39 per cent; BJP-NDA: 2014-2019 — 21.14 per cent, 2019-2023 — 56.8 per cent.
“No wonder, the average growth rate of the manufacturing sector between 2014-15 and 2023-24 is just 3.1 per cent (BJP-NDA) whereas between 2004-05 and 2013-14, the average growth rate was 7.85 per cent (Congress-UPA),” he said. This “disastrous policy” has reduced the share of workers employed in manufacturing to 11.4 per cent (2023-24) from 15.85 per cent (2017-18), Kharge said.
