Indian economy in a state of ‘high blood pressure’, says Shobhana Kamineni of Apollo Hospitals

Reacting over current economic slowdown in the country, Shobana Kamineni, executive vice chairperson of Apollo Hospitals said “Indian economy is in a state of high blood pressure.”

In an exclusive interview to NDTV, Kamineni said, "Every country goes through its stresses and our country has a few more going on. It's global stresses, it's environment stresses, it's job stresses, it's tensions that are coming from all over. So I would say that we're in a state of high blood pressure,"

Slowdown in the Indian economy is affecting the sales, forcing companies to slash production, job and has raised hopes in the business sector that the government will come up with economic stimulus to revive growth.

Kamineni also indicated at growing concerns of shrinking demand, led by a drop in consumer spending, she described this phenomenon an ‘epidemic’.

During the interview with the news website NDTV, she said, "Whenever we boasted about being the fastest growing economy in the world, even after demonetisation that kicked us back, consumer demand (continued to grow). But all of a sudden, you're seeing it (fall) everywhere. Postponing of purchasing is spreading to many sectors... and it's almost like an epidemic.

On being asked why, she stated that people don't believe that their lives are going to get better in the future. "We used to be among the most optimistic indices of the world that India would really feature in the top ten. But all of a sudden, when you see consumer growth going away, they think that they're going to be under stress, their jobs are going to be under stress," Kamineni said.