Congress targets government over Kumar's remarks, says 3 crore people may get unemployed

New Delhi, Aug 23 (ANI) Congress on Friday took a dig at the Modi government over remarks of Niti Aayog Vice Chairperson about the stress in the financial sector and claimed that over three crore people were facing the threat of unemployment.
Talking to media persons here, Congress spokesperson Manish Tewari said the Indian economy has slowed down to 5.7 per cent, the worst performance in the past five years.
"The Vice Chairperson of Niti Ayog Rajiv Kumar deserves to be congratulated for his confession," Tewari said.
Terming as "unprecedented" the ongoing situation in the financial sector Kumar had called for extraordinary steps to tackle it.
He had said that the country had not faced this sort of liquidity situation in the last 70 years "where the entire financial sector is in a churn, and nobody is trusting anybody else".
However, in an apparent damage control a day after his remarks, Kumar said his remarks had been misinterpreted by the media and government has been taking bold steps to boost the economy.
Tewari said it was not just the financial sector but the current situation in the Indian economy was also unprecedented.
"Something of that sort has not been seen in the past 70 years and much that the NDA-BJP Government would like us to believe that this is because of Pt Jawaharlal Nehru, unfortunately, that is not the case. This is the making of the NDA-BJP Government in the past five years," he said.
"If you look at some of the figures which stare at you squarely in the face, over 3 crore people are currently facing a threat of becoming unemployed. The sword of Damocles hangs over the heads of three crore people who can be on the streets at any point in time. Every sector of the economy is under grave stress," he added.
Tewari said the textile industry has been putting out advertisements on a daily basis now for the past one week explaining "that this is perhaps the worst period which the textile industry has seen in the past seven decades".
He said the tea industry is facing an unprecedented crisis.
He said Alan Greenspan, who used to be the Chairperson of the Federal Reserve in America, had actually created something called the Green Span Index.
"And the Green Span Index was premised on the fact that if there is a crisis in the inner-wear industry, it means that that Government or that economy is on the brink of explosion. It would be quite educative to go and visit the Green Span Index," Tewari said.
He said a biscuit manufacturing company has announced that they were laying off 10,000 people.
"The rupee as of today morning crashed to Rs. 72.03 against the Dollar making it the worst-performing currency in Asia. On Thursday alone, that was yesterday, FIIs pulled out Rs. 902.99 crores from the Indian equity market. The growth rate of the Indian economy has slowed down to 5.7 per cent. And this is 5.7 per cent for 2011-12 as the base year.
"If you actually were to take it at the previous base year of 2004-05 which is far more reliable index, the Indian economy is close to about 3.5 per cent of growth," he said.
Referring to the automobile sector, he said "3,50,000 people, as of today, stand retrenched".
He said Maruti Suzuki has cut its production by 25 per cent for the sixth consecutive month in a row.
"There is a shadow banking crisis because of insecurity. Private consumption is at a historic low and private consumption constitutes 60 per cent of the GDP," he said.
He said there is economic distress all around and accused the government of "deflection, obfuscation, politics of vendetta, unprecedented undeclared emergency across the country". (ANI)