Investment declined in last 10 years due to Modi govt’s 'Raid Raj': Congress

Party General Secretary Jairam Ramesh  said that India needs a liberal approach and not minor changes in policies.

Jairam Ramesh said in a statement, "The main reason for India not growing rapidly since 2014 is the sluggish investment rate. Investment has been declining continuously since 2014 due to unstable policies, dominance of crony capitalism and 'Red Raj' of ED, CBI and Income Tax Department."

He said that low investment pulls down the medium and long term GDP growth rate, resulting in a decline in wages and consumption growth.

"Gross FDI has also remained more or less stable since 2014. However, this is only part of the story. At least since 2016, multinationals around the world have been looking to invest in developing countries other than China. In this situation, India was in the right place at the right time with a large and growing labour pool, but this opportunity to attract FDI and become a manufacturing and export-oriented economy was wasted," he said. Countries like Bangladesh and Vietnam managed to reap the benefits.”

According to Jairam Ramesh, corporate tax cuts and concessions like the PLI (production-linked incentive scheme) cannot replace a fundamentally free society, polity and economy “which has been plagued by masterstrokes like demonetisation, crony capitalism and red rule.”

The Congress leader said India needs a new, liberal approach to political economy, not minor policy changes.