Jaitley terms oppn comments on economy ‘exaggerated’

TIL Desk/Business/New Delhi/ Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has dismissed as “exaggerated” the suggestion that India’s growth rate plummeted to an all-time low, saying that for the last three consecutive years, the country has remained the fastest growing economy in the world.

Jaitley’s remarks came after TMC MP Saugata Roy said the country’s growth rate plummeted to an all-time low of 5.7 per cent in the first quarter of 2017-18 and showed only a small rise in the second quarter.

“The honourable member’s phraseology, with utmost respect to him, is somewhat exaggerated. Our economy, for three years in a row, is the world’s fastest growing economy,” he said in Lok Sabha during the Question Hour.

The minister said this year, even the IMF and the World Bank have said that by 0.1 per cent, India will be the second fastest growing economy. “Therefore, to exaggerate that situation to say that we have hit the bottom and that it is a ‘rot’ that has set in is somewhat not correct,” he said. When Roy clarified that he used the word “rut” not “rot”, Jaitley said “rut is worse than rot”.