Economy fast eroding, growth figures belie PM’s claims: Congress

The Congress on Saturday attacked the government over India’s economic growth slowing to near two-year low, saying the country’s medium and long-term economic potential is “eroding rapidly” and asked how long will the grim reality of stagnant wages for crores of workers continue to be ignored.

Congress general secretary and in-charge communications Jairam Ramesh said the GDP growth figures released last evening for July-September 2024 were much worse than anticipated, with India recording a measly 5.4% growth and consumption similarly growing by an unimpressive 6%.

“The non-biological PM and his cheerleaders are wilfully blind to the causes of this sharp slowdown, but a new report on ‘Labour Dynamics of Indian States’ released by a leading Mumbai-based financial information services company, India Ratings and Research, on the 26th of November 2024 reveals its real cause: stagnant wages,” Ramesh said in a statement.

The Congress leader pointed out that the report uses Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) data to show that overall real wage growth at the national level has been flat at 0.01% over the last five years.

In fact, the workers in Haryana, Assam and Uttar Pradesh had seen their real wages decline in the same period, he said.

This is hardly the exception, nearly every piece of evidence pointed to this same damning conclusion that the average Indian can buy less today than they could 10 years ago, Ramesh said.

“This is the ultimate root cause for India’s growth slowdown, and multiple sources of data have now confirmed this wage stagnation,” he asserted.

Citing Labour Bureau’s Wage Rate Index, he said real wages for the labourers stagnated between 2014-2023 and in fact declined between 2019-2024.

Ramesh further cited the Ministry of Agriculture’s Agricultural Statistics and said that under former prime minister Manmohan Singh, real wages for agricultural labourers grew at 6.8% each year.

“Under Narendra Modi, real wages for agricultural labourers declined by minus 1.3% each year,” he said.

Citing the Periodic Labour Force Survey Series, Ramesh said the average real earnings over time have stagnated between 2017 and 2022 across all employment types’ salaried workers, casual workers and self- employed workers.

Citing the Center for Labour Research and Action, Ramesh said the real wages of brick kiln workers have stagnated or declined between 2014 and 2022. Brick kilns involve intensive labour and are a low-paying work,” he said.