New Delhi:
Former Finance Minister and Congressional Leader P Chidambaram today tweeted a series of measures to boost consumption, including paying back GST payments to states, including raising money through loans to take out the economy. the country’s steepest decline on record.
Among the recommended measures to stimulate demand, or consumption, to boost production and reactivate the economy, Chidambaram said the government should transfer cash to 50 percent of the poorest families, use cereal stocks to pay wages in species, increase spending on public works and recapitalize banks so they can lend again.
“All of the above will need money. Borrow it. Don’t hesitate,” he suggested and shared ways to raise money in the following tweet.
Here are some concrete steps to raise money:
1. Relax the FRBM standard and borrow more this year
2. Accelerate divestment
3. Use the offer of 6.5 billion USD from the IMF, WB, ADB, etc.
4. As a last resort, monetize part of the deficit
– P. Chidambaram (@PChidambaram_IN) September 6, 2020
Chidambaram has been urging the government to take concrete steps to reactivate the economy and has asked it to provide GST compensation to states, as promised at the time of GST implementation.
The veteran leader had previously said that the country would face a “long and endless tunnel” if the government did not take corrective measures to help the economy turn around.
He had said that every other sector of the economy had “declined dramatically” and that while that did not surprise him, it should be “a matter of shame for a government that did nothing, literally nothing, to cushion the decline by taking fiscal measures. appropriate. and welfare measures “.
“This is the time to borrow, spend, boost demand, put money in the hands of the poor so that consumption increases,” the former minister had said earlier, sharing his recipe for economic recovery.
In an interview with NDTV, Mr. Chidambaram had questioned the assertion of Senior Economic Advisor KV Subramanian after the shock GDP data the country had suffered due to the lockdown and would see a better performance in the coming quarters thanks to a “recovery V-shaped “in various sectors.
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