Worst is yet to come, says Manmohan Singh on demonetisation

Aditi Tandon
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, January 11

Former prime minister Manmohan Singh and his colleague in the UPA government P Chidambaram on Wednesday predicted a sharp fall in India’s GDP on account of the government’s demonetisation with Singh saying the worst is yet to come.

“I venture to say that the worst is yet to come,” Manmohan said at the party’s national convention against demonetisation. Describing the PM’s claims of a rise in national income as hollow, Singh said various rating agencies of the world are projecting a fall in GDP over the previous estimate of 7.6 per cent.

(Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd)

“Agencies are projecting GDP growth rate of merely 7.1 per cent with some agencies projecting the GDP as low as 6.3 per cent,” the former PM said after Chidambaram explained what this fall meant for the country.

“One per cent GDP rate fall implies the loss of Rs 1.5 lakh crore, which means loss of jobs, incomes and livelihoods,” Chidambaram said earlier, adding that there was no record of any Cabinet meeting on demonetisation on November 8.

“Where is the cabinet note?  There is none. The RBI’s reputation is at risk. Instead of the RBI advising the government on economic policy, the government advised the RBI to consider demonetisation. When did the RBI hold its directors’ meet? When did it send notices to independent directors? The RBI is not giving us any information,” Chidambaram said, questioning Modi’s cashless India pitch.

The former FM said no government could force itself on issues of personal wealth. “How I spend my money is my right,” Chidambaram said citing how the world’s most developed nations--Germany, France and the US--continued to use more and not less cash.

The Congress also passed a condolence resolution on the alleged 100 demonetisation deaths during November and December.