DeMo has hit growth, I warned so: Ex-PM

Bhartesh Singh Thakur

Tribune News Service

Mohali, September 22

Former PM Manmohan Singh today said the government's demonetisation “adventure” was unnecessary. He was speaking at a leadership summit at ISB here. 

“I don’t think demonetisation was required at all. More than 86 per cent of the country’s currency was demonetised. There was bound to be a fallout. Demonetisation has not been successful in any civilised country. The adventure was not necessary.

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“The economy has slowed down. I predicted this months ago. This is owing to demonetisation coupled with GST. The latter is good in the long run, but there are glitches. We all want to grow at 7 or 8 per cent as we want to lift people from poverty. There is a need for political consensus on policy-making.” Asserting that private investment had gone down by about 5 per cent as compared to the UPA regime, he called for more spending in the health sector. "India is not spending enough on healthcare. Private sector has a role but we cannot rely exclusively on private players," he said.

Replying to a question, he said the government was not spending enough on the public sector. "It is a mere 30 per cent of the GDP, which is far less than other capitalist countries in the world." On US protectionism, the former PM said, "I think globalisation has come to stay. Whatever the US President in his election campaign might have said, I am confident that American public opinion will prevail. I also feel that in Europe there is recognition that a multilateral world trading system needs to be sustained and encouraged."