"The Finance Ministry on Saturday said the month of September has exhibited 'credible signs' of normalcy and the government is not averse to taking any further measures to ameliorate the suffering of people." Even though tax collections are down, the government provided direct financial assistance of Rs 689.21 billion to 420 million people, Rs 309.52 billion to 206.5 million women through Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT), Rs 49.87 billion to 18.2 million construction workers, free food grains to 200 million households, and Rs 2.18 trillion to State Governments as Devolution of Share of Taxes. "State Bank of India (SBI) and Hindustan Unilever Ltd (HUL) said consumer demand and liquidity have been improving over sequential quarters, sounding a note of cheer." "India's external account is seeing its best year since the balance of payments crisis (BOP) crisis in 1991 as Covid induced shutdown slowed import demand from the manufacturing sector while the services sector performed well; that funded imports without the use of capital flows." In the April-June quarter, India had a trade deficit in goods of $10 billion because, though exports fell by one-third, imports fell by 50%, wrote SA Aiyer. "This reflected not economic strength but an economy imploding so much faster than others that India's demand for imports fell faster than foreign demand for Indian exports." According to economic teaching "a current account surplus is exactly equal to the surplus of national savings over investment". "Today, India is investing so little that it has a savings surplus." "After touching a lifetime high in the previous week, the country's foreign exchange reserves declined by $3.017 billion to $542.021 billion in the week ended September 25, RBI data showed on Friday." "Turning the tide after six months of contraction and in step with other economic indicators, exports grew 5.27 percent in September." "Imports declined 19.60 percent at $30.31 billion in September against $37.69 billion in the same period in 2019-20." That is bad news for a growing economy, wrote Udit Misra. Car sales were up, Maruti jumping by 34%, the coming festival season may increase demand further, demand for petrol was up 2%, but diesel demand was down, and the Nikkei Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) jumped to 56.8 in September from 52.0 in August. However, the rate of improvement seems to be stagnating. Though India saw the sharpest decline in economic output in the April-June quarter, "It was also one of the very few countries that saw inflation climb in the same period," wrote Niranjan Rajadhyaksha. "An emerging market economy is structurally different from an advanced economy, but it is still worth considering the possibility of of a two-stage economic shock in India, with a supply shock being followed by a demand shock." Around "Rs 7 trillion worth of daily liquidity lie unutilized with RBI," wrote Diva Jain. The government should borrow this money and use it for public investments. The Finance Ministry has already given a long list of spending. So, why are people complaining?
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