Government's White Paper Targets Congress

After congress released Black Paper in the morning today, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman tabled the government's 'White Paper on India Economy' in Parliament in the evening, which aimed at comparing the performance of the Indian economy under the previous UPA government and the current BJP-led NDA government.

In an all-out attack on the Congress ahead of the Lok Sabha elections due in summer, the Centre accused the UPA government that went out of office in 2014, of "mismanagement and short-sighted handling of the public finances... and undermining the macroeconomic foundations".

It has been mentioned in the White paper that the UPA regime inherited a healthy economy in 2004 and left it in crisis when the current government took over in 2014.

"In 2014 when we formed the government, the economy was in a fragile state; public finances were in bad shape; there was economic mismanagement and financial indiscipline and there was widespread corruption. It was a crisis situation," said the government in its white paper.

In 2004, when the UPA government began its term, the economy was growing at 8 per cent (with industry and services sector growth above 7 per cent each and a resuscitating agriculture sector growth above 9 per cent in FY04) amidst a benign world economic environment," read the White Paper. But instead of taking the reforms further and consolidating the gains, the UPA only took credit for the high growth brought about by the "lagged effects of the reforms of the NDA government.