As Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his government completes six years in office, its time to find out what this great nation of 1.30 billion people has "achieved". Has it shined under Modi or doomed? Its a big question.
India, on its own, has always been shining with the sweat and blood of our brave warriors- soldiers, farmers, workers, housewives, scientists and entrepreneurs (netas excuse me). From a poor and backward economy until 1947, India has achieved tremendous progress in raising growth, self-reliance. income levels and standards of living. The gross domestic product (GDP) increased from Rs 2,939 billion during 1950-51 to more than Rs 60,000 billion in 2019. India is now world's fifth largest economy.
Let us see how Modi govt has done on economic and political fronts. Indian economy was doing fairly well until demonetization in November, 2016. India clocked 7.41% growth rate in 2014, up 1.02% from 2013 and 8 % in 2015, up 0.59% from 2014. It was 8.17% in 2016, a 0.17% increase from 2015. But it started decking afterwards. India GDP growth rate for 2017 was 7.17%, a 1% decline from 2016 and 6.81% in 2018 a 0.36% decline from 2017.2018. It went down to 4.2% in 2019, a fall of 1.9% from 2018. The GDP growth rate in 2020 is expected to be fairly low or negative.
The demonetization in 2016 resulted in prolonged cash shortages which created significant disruption throughout the economy. People seeking to exchange their banknotes or to withdraw money had to stand in lengthy queues, and in the process over 100 deaths were reported.
The very purpose of demonetization was to soak the black money that was running an parallel economy and sucking the financial system. However, it only helped in disrupting the economic activities, especially in rural areas that used to rely heavily on cash. As per RBI reports, efforts to remove black money miserably failed.
Nearly 99.3% of the demonetized banknotes, or Rs 15.30 lakh crore (15.3 trillion) of the Rs. 15.41 lakh crore that had been demonetized, were deposited with the banking system. according to a RBI report The banknotes that were not deposited were only worth ₹10,720 crore (107.2 billion). As such, demonetization only led to disruption and derailed the fast moving Indian economy, The BSE SENSEX and NIFTY 50 stock indices fell over 6 percent on the day after the announcement. The move reduced the country's factory production and its GDP growth rate.
The impact was so severe that Indian economy which was locking 6 to 7 percent average growth rate since the start of this century, was just growing below 4 percent after demonetization. Over 5 million people lost jobs due to demo.
As if it wasn't enough, now the outbreak of deadly coronavirus has almost ruined the Indian economy. Undoubtedly, coronavirus is a world-wide pandemic and impacted every one, but a country under long period of lockdown can't sustain . The more than two-months of lockdown has broken down the backbone of the economy and it will take years to restore to pre-lockdown period of sustainable growth.
The death of any citizen is of course a tragedy not only for his family but also for the nation as it deprives the economy of an productive hand. Here we lost more than 100 productive hands due to demonetization. And now corona has snatched nearly 5,000 people (exactly 4971 as on May 29) and more than 130 migrant workers . Earlier, there were deaths due to mob lynching. riots and protests. No stoppage and no regrets as yet.
At the end of over two-month of lockdown, India recorded the biggest spike in death toll related to coronavirus infection. At least 265 new deaths were reported in last 24 hours on May 30. Maharashtra, the hub of manufacturing alone accounted for 50% of the total fatalities in India.
Brave words like "We have displayed patience so far and we should continue to do so" , "India recovery rate is better than others" and "we will win" have no meaning for those badly impacted by the lockdown. As many as 12 crore people have lost jobs and more than 90 percent of service sectors had more than 50 percent salary cut due to lockdown. We have earlier also heard such brave words," Pakistan and China ko munhtod jawab denge". Pakistan continues to wage proxy war in Kashmir and China intrudes into our territory at will.
The only relief during six years was the political stability. But it can't give us relief from economical pain and sufferings. More than 80 percent of Indians struggle for "Do waqt kee roti-Twice a day flatbread". For them economic stability matter.