Congress flays Modi government's economic policies, says it is now time for change

The Congress launched a scathing attack on the economic policies being followed by the Narendra Modi government and called for change. On the last day of the three-day All India Congress Committee plenary, the party alleged that none of the promises of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the run up to the 2014 Lok Sabha election have been fulfilled.

The “Resolution on Economic Situation in India”, passed by the plenary on Sunday targeted the Modi government over its alleged failure to bring back black money stashed in overseas accounts, lack of job creation and for not being able to bring “achche din” for every Indian. Blaming the Centre for high prices of petrol, diesel and LPG, the Congress pointed out that the public was paying much less for fuel in May 2014 than it is today

Centre’s failure to address agrarian distress showed that the Modi government’s announcement of Minimum Support Price (MSP) at cost + 50 per cent was also made without any groundwork, alleged the party.

The Congress listed the big economic challenges that the country will face in the coming decades.

1: Generating productive jobs for millions of youth
2: Providing high quality education, healthcare and social safety net for hundreds of millions of the very poor
3: Evolve a balanced labour policy to promote growth and productivity while simultaneously providing security, remunerative wages and quick justice system for the labour.
4: To protect contract labours from exploitation the strict adherence to the implementation of “equal work – equal pay” provisions.
5: Managing agrarian distress and improving agricultural productivity
6: Restoring robust credit growth, promoting new investments and reviving manufacturing to produce on the scale and quality demanded by the domestic and world markets
7: Facilitating steady growth in exports that will increase India’s share of global trade

According to the Congress, its economic policy doctrine will rest on the following tenets:

1: Prosperity for all through equal economic opportunities without the fear of economic oppression, tax terrorism and overbearing regulation.
2: Carefully designed programmes that focus on the needs and aspirations of the poor and the middle class.
3: Large investments by the State in education, healthcare and social safety nets and an efficient public service delivery system.
4:  A conducive social and policy climate to foster business confidence, reward risk-taking and promote employment with security.
5: Focus on human development indicators along with economic indicators