New Delhi: The Congress on Friday demanded that a financial emergency be declared in the country and white paper be released on the "shrinking economy and rising frauds".
Congress spokespersons Jaiveer Shergill and Gaurav Vallabh accused the BJP government of destroying the credibility of the country's economy and banking system and demanded that it should declare the names of wilful defaulters, along with the details of their non-performing assets (NPAs).
"The Congress demands that a financial emergency should be declared in the country," Shergill told a press conference here. "We reiterate that the BJP government should release a white paper on the shrinking economy and rising frauds," he said.
"It is getting clearer by the day that the country is heading towards a major recessionary phase. This is a classic case of recession under expansionary trends, as whenever there are three continuous quarters of growth recession (reduction in growth quarter-on-quarter), the chances of slipping into a full-blown recession are significantly higher," Vallabh said.
He added that once the June 2019 quarter numbers were announced, it would be clear that India was witnessing a reduction in growth for five consecutive quarters.
Vallabh said the problems that this phenomenon put forth were that natural recovery did not occur and the country had to solely rely on monetary policy actions, while the short-term stimulus remained short-term and only helped in assuaging wounds.
"The questions we want to ask the government are what is its response to the prolonged reduction in growth? Does it have any clue of what is actually wrong and who's responsible for the same," Shergill said.
As a responsible opposition, Congress wanted the government to immediately issue a white paper on the state of the economy, he added.
"Rather than a band-aid approach, we want a substantial solution to this state of the economy," the Congress spokesperson said, wondering why the government would not accept that the country was witnessing a recession and it would only be revived when a private and public investment cycle would start in the economy.
Shergill alleged a "systematic decimation of the economy" with worsening distress in the farm sector, factories and finance, adding that only frauds, fake promises and aggression on the system were rampant in the country under the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) rule.
He also alleged that frauds in the banking system shot up by 74 percent to Rs 71,543 crore in the 2018-19 financial year, compared to frauds worth Rs 41,167 crore committed in the 2017-18 financial year.
"RBI data has revealed that 27,125 cases of bank frauds of a whopping Rs 1.74 lakh crore (Rs 1,74,753 lakh crore) were reported in the past five years. Is this amount similar to the recapitalisation of banks? Why, suddenly now, so many cases of frauds are out? Is it an indirect way of looting taxpayers' money?," the Congress spokesperson asked.
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