Economic Survey a powerful indictment of economic policies pursued by Modi government: Congress 

The Economic Survey is a “powerful indictment” of the economic policies pursued by the Narendra Modi-led Union government, Congress leaders said on Friday (January 31, 2025), especially underlining Chief Economic Adviser V. Anantha Nageswaran’s prescription to the government to “get out of the way”.

Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge said the survey had shown the “mirror of truth” to the government. He said that to hide the state of economy, a controversy had been created over Congress Parliamentary Party Chairperson Sonia Gandhi’s remarks on President Droupadi Murmu.

Also read | Economic survey calls for Ease of Doing Business 2.0 but silent on GST 2.0, ending ‘tax terrorism’: Jairam Ramesh

Former Union Finance Minister P. Chidambaram, in a series of posts on X, pointed out that in the preface of the economic survey, the Chief Economic Adviser had laid down what was wrong with the government in the past 10 years and what needs to be done. “His advice to the government to ‘Get out of the way’ is the most sensible piece of advice that I have heard from any government official in the last 10 years,” Mr. Chidambaram wrote.

He called the CEA’s advice to the government “most timely and powerful”. “Wiping out the trust deficit in the country is imperative and government agencies have to set the agenda in this regard,” he said, adding further that “nobody trusts this government and its weaponised agencies”.

Congress general secretary (Communication) Jairam Ramesh, in a long post, highlighted the divergence between the government’s attitude towards the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme and the CEA’s assessment.

The survey, Mr. Ramesh, said, pointed out that the MGNREGS has been a lifeline for the rural poor, and has today evolved into a “durable rural asset creation programme” for sustainable livelihood diversification. In an era of accelerated climate change, it has helped boost rural ecological health through improvement of soil quality and improved water management, he said.

“The Prime Minister must therefore explain why he is throttling MGNREGA by reducing allocations, excluding 27% of workers from getting paid by foisting an Aadhaar-based Payment System on them, and keeping wages low,” he said.

He also picked out the observation in the survey that there were 11.5 crore unique investors with demat accounts in Indian financial markets. The document notes that “higher investor participation has engendered a self-reinforcing cycle of strong market returns, bringing in even more investors,” he said, asking, “Why then is the government overseeing the corruption and weakening  of a valuable national asset like SEBI, whose integrity is central to the welfare of these investors?”

Praveen Chakravarty, chairman, Professionals’ Wing and Data Analytics department of Congress, said that the while the survey called the State governments to “get out of the way” of business people and build trust to attract investment, Mr. Modi and his Cabinet were constantly in the hairs of industrialists, forcing them to praise Mr. Modi, move to Gujarat, and not fund the Opposition.