(FE)
Terming the current economic slowdown a temporary phenomenon, Union minister for law and justice, communication and information technology Ravi Shankar Prasad on Wednesday claimed that all parameters of the Indian economy are strong and would grow further. The GDP growth rate remained healthy right from 2013-14 and never went below 6%, though in the first quarter of current fiscal it was 5.1% due to global factors, said Prasad during a press conference on ‘100 days of bold initiatives and decisive actions’ of the Modi 2.0 government.
“Inflation rate is 3.1%, coupled with as low as 3.4% of fiscal deficit. Foreign investments have increased by 28% to $ 16.30 billion. Foreign exchange reserves of the nation is $4.28 billion,” said the minister justifying his claims. Talking about the employment situation, he said that everybody wouldn’t get government jobs, but Rs 9.84 lakh crore disbursed to 19.99 crore people via Mudra loans would generate a plethora of new jobs. Quoting EPFO data between 2017 and June 2019, he said during the period, 2.54 crore people were enrolled. In the IT sector, 40 lakh people are directly employed and in the past five years 8.7 lakh more were employed in the sector.
