india

Updated: Dec 01, 2018 19:25 IST

The Narendra Modi-led central government has failed to deliver on its promise of a double-digit growth in the last four years and it will not manage it even in the remaining six months of its term, former finance minister P Chidambaram said on Saturday.

“This government promised a double-digit growth rate. They have not achieved that growth rate in any of the four years. And they will not achieve it in the last year also,” he said at a press conference here.

The senior Congress leader said there was a sense of crisis in every sector, be it banking, industry, construction or real-estate.

Chidambaram’s remarks came a day after official data showed that India’s GDP growth rate declined to 7.1 per cent during the July-September quarter, compared to April-June’s 8.2 per cent.

Read: Arun Jaitley, P Chidambaram spar over GDP revision

Earlier, in a series of tweets, he said the GDP growth in Q2 of 2018-19 was a good 1 per cent lower than in Q1.

He said the 8.2 per cent growth rate in April-June quarter was on a very low base in the previous year and did not warrant the jubilation of the Bharatiya Janata Party.

“Going forward, it is likely that Q3 and Q4 will register similar growth rates unless there are unexpected shocks. The new normal for the Indian economy is 7 per cent and 2018-19 will be a normal year,” Chidambaram said.

“More and more large companies are going bankrupt today than ever before. More and more projects are stranded than ever before. More and more accounts turned NPA (non-performing assets) than ever before. More banks have been restrained from lending than ever before. There is a sense of crisis everywhere,” he told the media here in poll-bound Rajasthan.

Read: Govt says new GDP calculation is more reflective of Indian economy