india

Updated: Sep 09, 2019 20:58 IST

Union minister for human resource development (HRD), Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank on Monday brushed aside the country’s economic slowdown as “little ups and downs”.

Pokhriyal who was addressing the media in Dehradun on ‘100 days of bold initiatives and decisive actions’ of the NDA government’s second term, said, “Our government has talked about $5trillion economy which I think has lot of might. However, there have been some criticism on the current economic situation which I think is due to little ups and downs which happens sometimes and is nothing.”

On some ‘major actions’ taken by the Centre, he said, “There have been a 25% increase in the FDI (foreign direct investment). Our country has become the centre of attraction for FDI.”

Pokhriyal’s “little ups and downs” statement came 11 days after India’s gross domestic product (GDP) growth decelerated to 5% - the slowest pace in six years in the June quarter. The latest GDP figures had prompted former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to say that the economy was in a prolonged slowdown because of all-round mismanagement by the Modi government.

The HRD minister also spoke on the abrogation of Article 370 and Article 35A in Jammu and Kashmir and said the decision was taken in “favour of the people.”

“Before the abrogation of both the Articles, the people in Jammu and Kashmir felt like slaves. But now after this step, they would also be able to take benefit of various schemes like Ujjawala, free LPG connection scheme, mid-day meal scheme, right to education, scholarships, PM Awas Yojana and many others. The step is a major step taken towards the integration of country,” Pokhriyal said.

The minister also hailed the government’s decision to criminalise triple talaq. “Before our government no other governments dared to take any action against this practice despite many of our mothers and sisters suffering because of it.”

“Like this, the PM Modi-led NDA government in its second term has taken many bold and big decisions in the first 100 days which has happened for the first time,” he said.

Pokhriyal also claimed that Prime Minister Modi is not one to wait for the last year in office to take big decisions.

“Before this, there was a perception that the governments always take big decisions in the last one year of its term but PM Modi has broken the perception in a big way by doing so from the very first day of the formation of government.”

“Due to his efforts, India has been able to directly hit terrorism and isolate a nation which has supported terrorism,” he said without naming Pakistan.

Reacting to Pokhriyal’s claims, the Uttarakhand Congress unit termed the NDA-2 government a failure.

“PM Modi-led NDA government has failed at every front including the economic one. For the first time Maruti Suzuki has halted its production due to a slump in demand. Many factories manufacturing auto parts have shut down,” said Suryakant Dhasmana, state vice-president of Congress.

“Not only this, millions of people belonging to real-estate sector have lost jobs as it is witnessing a slowdown. Despite all this, HRD minister calls these, little ups and downs. If these are little ups and downs, then why did the Centre extract Rs 1.76lakh crore from RBI which was meant for contingency?” he asked.