‘10 yrs of UPA a wasted decade’: Sitharaman tears into Opposition on economics & politics

New Delhi: India is in a “rare position of being optimistic and positive” about future growth, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said while speaking during the no-confidence motion debate in the Lok Sabha Thursday, while also launching scathing economic and political salvos at the Opposition.

While castigating the Opposition for being at the helm when India was designated as being part of the ‘Fragile Five’ economies and for launching schemes without any follow-through, Sitharaman also spoke about the steps this government has taken to eradicate poverty and to mitigate the current spike in the price of tomatoes.

In 2013, Morgan Stanley classified India as being part of the ‘Fragile Five’ economies in the world, whereas now, that same Morgan Stanley has upgraded its outlook on India,” Sitharaman said, referring to last week’s decision by Morgan Stanley to upgrade India’s rating to ‘overweight’ from ‘equal weight’.

An overweight rating denotes that the economy is expected to do better in the future.

The finance minister also reeled off a list of sectors and areas where the Modi Government has significantly increased its expenditure as compared with the spending done in these areas under the UPA. In particular, she spoke about how capital expenditure by the government grew to Rs 10.9 lakh crore under the Modi government from Rs 3.92 lakh crore in 2014.

Similarly, she said that spending on agriculture has grown “five-fold” from about Rs 21,000 crore in 2014 to more than Rs 1 lakh crore currently.