The chief minister, Mamata Banerjee, took to Twitter and Facebook, conveying her “heartiest congratulations” to the state for having ranked first in GDP growth rate in the country while she took a dig at the Central government for the dip in India’s overall GDP growth. Miss Banerjee tweeted: “As per reports of the Government Of India, growth rate of West Bengal for the financial year 2018-19, is 12.58 per cent, the highest in India.”
She also took to Facebook to convey the same. She posted: “Our achievement is in sharp contrast to the state of deep recession and complete policy paralysis perpetrated by Central government leading to significant decline of overall growth rate of the country and highest unemployment in 45 years.”
“The GDP growth of the country has fallen to 5.8 per cent in Q4 of 2018-19, the lowest growth rate in the last five years, between 2014-15 and 2018-19. Industrial output growth was 2 per cent in June 2019.” Growth during April, May and June, 2019 was 3.6 per cent against 5.1 per cent in the previous years. Index of Industrial production was 1.2 per cent in June 2019 compared to 6.9 per cent in June 2018. Capital goods sector growth was (-) 6.5 per cent in June 2019 compared to 9.7 per cent in June 2018.”
“As stated earlier, the unemployment rate is highest in 45 years, 6.1 per cent in 2018-19. Moreover, the central government is actively pursuing disinvesment of government assets, from Ordinance Factory Board to BSNL, from Air India to Railways, from Chittaranjan Locomotive Works to alloy steel plant, Durgapur and about 45 more public sector undertakings. This would lead to lakhs and lakhs of unemployment. Very recently, the automobile and leather sectors have witnessed over three lakh job losses. The government came to power with the agenda of creating more employment opportunities. What we are seeing now is that those who are in employment, are losing their jobs. There cannnot be anything more tragic than this.” The post further said: “Invesments in new projects plunged to 15 years low in the quarter ending in June 2019.
“New projects announced in June quarter 2019 is 81 per cent lower than what was announced in March quarter 2019 and 81 per cent lower than what was anounced in March quarter 2019 and 87 per cent lower than the same period a year ago. Implementation of investment projects worth Rs 13 trillion has been stalled -the highest value since CMIE began compiling data in 1995. FDI has shown a negative growth rate of 1.09 per cent in 2018-19 as compared to 2017-18. It is for everyone to see and realise the true situation where our country stands now.”
“The agenda of the government has changed from economy and development to politics, politics, and only politics,” Miss Banerjee wrote.