Raghuram Rajan: Modi govt’s economic policies have benefited only a few; no ‘sabka vikas’

The former RBI governor Raghuram Rajan said although India has had 7% growth, it is not clearly creating enough jobs. Citing an example of job shortage, he said 25 million people applied for 90,000 railway jobs.

“That makes it 250 persons per job and these are not highly-priced jobs. These are actually low level jobs. So, it does suggest enormous demand for jobs,” he said.

Elaborating, Rajan said the growth was not benefiting all sectors and all people, and inequality was increasing between people.

Besides, he expressed concern over the subdued exports despite the fact that India has cheap labour in large numbers.

Elaborating, Rajan said the growth was not benefiting all sectors and all people, and inequality was increasing between people

Noting that there has been talk about improvement in inflation, he said, there is no improvement in the fiscal deficit of centre and states in the last 5 years.

"So, in terms of public sectors borrowing, it's still as big as it was and that is source of concern especially as states budgets are going out of balance. We see trade deficit is large even after taking out the effect of borrowing," he said.

Rajan, who was RBI governor for three years till September 2016, is currently teaching at the Chicago Booth School of Business.