Support The Interview with Karan Thapar https://fij.mojo.page/supporttheint...
In an interview where he paints a bleak and disturbing picture of the state of the economy, one of India’s foremost economists and the country’s former Chief Statistician has repeatedly said that we can identify the problems that are retarding growth but we don’t know how to tackle them. Worse, Prof. Pronab Sen says he is not sure the government has diagnosed the problems because it has not spoken about them and its silence can be variously interpreted. Consequently, Prof. Sen expects that India will miss the RBI target of 7.2% growth for this financial year and only come in somewhere around 6 – 6.5%. However, he points out, in real terms growth will actually be just 4% which, he adds, is at least 2.5% below the growth India needs to create jobs for its population. This means, Prof. Sen points out, we can boast of being the fastest growing big economy but it’s equally true that we are considerably falling short of the rate of growth we need (6.5% to 7%) to create sufficient jobs for our people which, in turn, will boost consumption and spending and create incentives for investment. In these circumstances, Prof. Sen said, Quarter 1 growth of 13.5% is clearly disappointing.

Join The Wire's Youtube Membership and get exclusive content, memberonly emojis, live interaction with The Wire's founders, editors and reporters and much more. Memberships to The Wire Crew start at Rs 89/month.    / @thewirenews