Debt per Indian up 2.5 times thanks to ‘Modinomics’

Debt, unemployment and inequality have risen in the country under the Narendra Modi government and the debt on every Indian has increased by 2.5 times in the last nine years, Congress spokesperson Gourav Vallabh said on Sunday.

“The astronomical increase in the government's debt due to ‘Modinomics’ has crushed the common people as the debt per Indian has increased from Rs 43,124 to Rs 1,09,373 since 2014,” Vallabh said.

"From 1947 till 31 March 2014, the total debt of the Indian government increased to Rs 55.87 lakh crore. Why, in the last nine years, it grew to Rs 155.31 lakh crore, a jump of 2.77 times?” he demanded to know at a press conference in New Delhi.

He said that the Modi government is burying our future generations in debt. The debt per Indian increased from Rs 43,124 to Rs 1,09,373 in the last nine years. The debt per Indian has become 2.5 times higher than what it was in 2014, in the last nine years of the Modi government.

He said in absolute terms, the debt per Indian has increased by Rs 66,249 in the last nine years.

According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), for 2022, India's debt to GDP was 83 per cent, far above other emerging markets and developing economies that have an average debt of 64.5 per cent, the Congress leader said.

Vallabh said that according to the Oxfam report, the wealthiest five per cent in India own more than 60 per cent of the country's wealth, while the bottom half of the population (50 per cent) together share just three per cent of the wealth.

On the other side, 64 per cent of the Rs 14.83 lakh crore collected in Goods and Services Tax (GST) came from the bottom 50 per cent of the population, with only three per cent of the amount coming from the top 10 per cent.

"The above borrowing is just helping in a K-shaped recovery, with some sectors doing well but not others. The Covid pandemic hit the middle- and low-income groups and small and medium industries harder. As a result, the growth in consumption fell from 25.9 per cent in the first quarter of FY2022-23 to 9.7 per cent in the second quarter (Q2).

The ‘chosen people’ getting richer

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Sunday said yet again questioned as to how the wealth of a select few was increasing exponentially when the rest of the citizens were getting poor.

"How did the wealth of the prime minister's 'favourite friend' increase by eight times during the pandemic? How did the wealth of the prime minister's 'favourite friend' increase by 46 per cent in one year?” Rahul Gandhi said in a tweet in Hindi.

He added that the media kept diverting the attention of the public (by raking up divisive issues and irrelevant issues), while the Prime Minister’s “friends” kept “picking pockets”.

“The earnings of the poor were stolen by the 'friends'," he said.