Former Union Minister Manish Tewari takes up country’s economic situation in address to Lok Sabha

Congress MP and former Union Minister Manish Tewari took to microblogging platform Twitter to post highlights of a speech delivered by him in the Lok Sabha on Friday.

The tweets, stitched together, are reproduced below:

“Speaking in the Lok Sabha on Budget 2020, highlighted the economic disparity in our country, despite our Constitution unequivocally laying out the objectives of all-around development.

Stressing further the impact of widening economic disparity, recounted the figures which show that only a handful of capitalists hold the majority of wealth, with the rest of the population suffering the consequences of unequal distribution of capital.

Reiterating that our economic model must be reconsidered, spoke about economic analysis presented before the budget being directionless- having a glaring bias towards crony capitalists, instead of common man& it also refuels an old, unnecessary argument on new liberalism.

Before taking up Budget 2020, touched upon the need to have a lengthy discussion regarding the creation of a new economic model for India, given how neoliberalism & globalization were critical in shaping the economy in the 90s but had developed their drawbacks over time.

Continued to drive home my point of how critical the economic situation really is by furnishing a few alarming figures pertaining to GDP growth, consumption, investment growth, bank credit growth, unemployment rate, imports-exports & household savings rate, among others.

Drawing attention to economic slowdown& its effects on savings, consumption, investment & employment, stressed that the problem is on the demand side- typically in the rural areas. So, a hefty concession to capitalists which constitute the supply side will not solve the problem.

Cited some more figures related to MGNREGA, Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana & Urea subsidy among others, underlined the plight of our country’s farmers & rural economy, bringing to light the failure of the budget in trying & addressing these critical issues.

After providing figures & statistics, finally put forward few pertinent questions before the Finance Ministry including why steps have not been taken to accelerate personal consumption and money not been pumped into schemes that could’ve revived the economy.”