A ‘hollow envelope’ during nation’s ‘most difficult situation’: Congress on Economic Survey

Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge said that the Modi government “has crushed the aspirations of 140 crore Indians in 10 years”. “The Union Education Minister (Dharmendra Pradhan) spreads lies in the House, avoids taking responsibility for the NEET paper leak… Today the future of the youth is in limbo. The unemployment rate is at 9.2%. There is a stampede for jobs,” Kharge said in a post on X.

The backbreaking inflation, he said, has pushed the savings of families to the lowest in the last 50 years. He said the survey says “FDI should come from China”.

“Modiji gave a political ‘clean chit’ to China while insulting the 20 martyrs in Galwan, and today his economic survey has given an economic ‘clean chit’ to China,” he said, adding that import of Chinese goods to India have jumped by 68% since 2020 and our trade deficit with China has soared by 75%.

In his post, Kharge said, “today’s news says now the Modi government wants to reimplement the three anti-farmer black laws through the back door. The national average monthly agricultural income of the farmers who provide food is only Rs 5,298.”

The contentious three farm laws, introduced in 2020, were repealed by the central government in November 2021 following nationwide protests by farmers groups.

Kharge alleged that the survey “tells a blatant lie by claiming that poverty has almost been eradicated. The truth is the gap between the rich and the poor in the country is the highest in 100 years.”

In a statement, Congress General Secretary incharge communications Jairam Ramesh said the need of the hour is a right to apprenticeship, protections for gig workers and unorganised sector workers, minimum wage hikes to Rs 400 per day, an end to “tax terrorism” and an expansion of social-protection schemes like the one for anganwadis.

“The Economic Survey… must have been a difficult document for the non-biological PM’s spin doctors to produce. It does its best to present an ‘all is well’ rosy picture of the economy. Unfortunately for the PM and for the people of India, the economic situation is so desperate that some harsh facts come through anyway,” Ramesh said, adding that the economic recovery in the aftermath of Covid-19 has been deeply unequal, resulting in rural India being left behind.

“The Modi government’s anti-farmer mindset is called out in the Economic Survey. Its abuse of import-export policy with unplanned and unjustified export bans and floods of cheap imports has been flagged for debilitating farmer incomes. Wheat, paddy, pulses, onion, sugar and edible oils — no farmer has been spared by the whimsy of the government’s policy-making,” he said.

“India is in its most precarious and difficult economic situation in many years. The Economic Survey might present a cherry-picked view of the economy, but we hope that tomorrow’s Budget faces up to the country’s realities,” the former Union minister said.

Congress’s Deputy Leader in the Lok Sabha Gaurav Gogoi told mediapersons that the survey is far from reality. “On inflation, the government has totally failed… The rich are not bothered by it, but the poor and the middle class are asking when they will be freed of inflation. The Economic Survey doesn’t have any answer to this. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman doesn’t see inflation.”