Cong questions Sitharaman’s claim on demonetisation not affecting economic growth

Refuting the claim made by Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman that demonetisation was not the reason for the decline of Indian economy, the Congress on Wednesday said that it has negatively affected all levels of growth.
Quoting a media report, that Ms Sitharaman said the decline in the growth in the year of 2018-19 was on account of lower growth in agriculture, trade, transport, defence, communication and services, the Congress pointed out that the impact was due to the note ban.
“If the impact on the low growth is because of outcomes from these sectors, the manufacturing sector has had a certain fall but which is not attributable to demonetisation,” reports quoted the Minister as she had given a reply in Rajya Sabha.
The Congress said that the demonetisation led to two percent loss to GDP growth, 1.5 million jobs lost, 53.46 percent decline in RBI surplus, 20-30 percent decline in Industrial production and added that “What further examples of its effect on the economy does Nirmala Sitharaman need before she accepts it was a failure?”.
According to report, Mr Sitharaman also said that “but, we are still the fastest growing economy”.
She also said the economic growth is high on the agenda of Narendra Modi government, however, on May, the government had announced that country’s growth rate had declined to 5.8 percent in the last quarter of the financial year 2018-19.