Accusing the Narendra Modi government of "burying" future generations in debt, Congress on Sunday said the debt per Indian has increased 2.53 times from Rs 43,124 to Rs 1.09 lakh in nine years during the BJP rule.
Congress spokesperson Gourav Vallabh alleged that 'Modinomics' meant "rising debts, rising unemployment and rising inequality" in the country.
From 1947 till 31 March, 2014, the total debt of the Government of India increased to Rs 55.87 lakh crore. The question is why in the last nine years it further grew to Rs 155.31 lakh crore, which is a jump of 2.77 times? The Modi government is burying our future generations in debt," Vallabh told a press conference.
This means that debt per person in 2014 was Rs 43,124 and it rose to Rs 1,09,373 now, which is "a loan they have never taken", Vallabh said. In absolute terms, he said, the debt per Indian increased by Rs 66,249 during the Modi regime.
He said Modi must answer why the debt per Indian has increased and why is the money borrowed just helping in a K-shaped recovery, with 50 per cent of the population owning 3 per cent of total wealth and ending up paying 64 per cent of the GST collected.
Citing IMF data for 2022, Vallabh said, India's debt to GDP was 83 per cent, which is "far above our peers, emerging market and developing economies (EMDEs), which have average Debt of 64.5 per cent".
He also referred to the latest Oxfam report which said the 5 per cent rich in the country own more than 60 per cent of India's wealth while the bottom half of the population together share just 3 per cent of the wealth.
On the other side, 64 per cent of the total Rs 14.83 lakh crore in Goods and Services Tax (GST) came from the bottom 50 per cent of the population, with only 3 per cent of GST coming from the top 10 per cent," he said.
So, the above borrowing is just helping in the K-shaped recovery, with some sectors doing well but not others. The pandemic hit the middle and low-income groups and small and medium industries harder. As a result, growth in consumption fell from 25.9 per cent in Quarter 1 of 2022-23 to 9.7 per cent in Quarter 2," he said.