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India traversed from ‘fragile five’ to ‘fastest growing’ economy in the last 5 years – Piyush Goyal
Apr 05, 2019

India was considered part of ‘fragile five’ economy around 2013-14 but is now being talked about as the fastest growing major economy, remarked Shri Piyush Goyal, Minister of Railways and Coal at an interaction at the CII Annual Session 2019 with the theme ‘India 5.0: India@75 and Beyond’. Praising the prime minister and the finance minister for efficient management of the economy, he said that investments are picking up which otherwise was slowing down few years back. He credited the government for bringing inflation under control and putting India back on the growth track. Current account deficit too, has come down substantially in the last month and is no longer a concern. On improving growth, he said all stakeholders including RBI should introspect on their respective roles.

On jobs, he said that the nature of jobs is changing as more people are working on contractual basis and one should benchmark more on ‘livelihood creation’ compared to conventional jobs. He warned that any doles will lead to under reporting of income and capturing authentic data on jobs would become a challenge and hinder formalization of economy. He called on the industry members of CII in their capacity as ‘principal employer’ to make sure that their contractors register their employees on formal platforms like EPFO and ESIC.

Listing major achievements of his ministry, he said railways has been made free from politics and is being run as a professional entity. Rs. 6000 crore has been sanctioned for three aspirational districts of Uttar Pradesh. Railways have a target of making 6400 stations wi-fi enabled by 2nd September 2019 and have already completed 1500 stations. On coal he said India produced four times more coal in last five years compared to the previous five. He also said that twenty-four by seven power supply is a given now, which wasn’t the case earlier.

He said that the ‘culture of doles’ is a race to a bottom and we all must be wary of it. Calling on the industry to do more for the disadvantaged and under-privileged sections of the society, he said people at the bottom of the pyramid need to rise and their ‘ease of living’ should be improved. We should also leave a cleaner, stronger, safe and secure country for the youth.

Mr Vinayak Chatterjee, President – CII Economic Affairs Council while welcoming the minister said that he has become a ‘national crisis manager’ citing his role in power, railways, coal and finance ministries over past five years and congratulated him for the same.

5 April 2019

New Delhi

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