India's economic growth slumped to a near seven-year low of 5 percent in the April-June quarter of 2019-20 due to a sharp deceleration in the manufacturing sector and sluggish agriculture output, according to official data released on Friday, 30 August.
The previous low was recorded at 4.9 percent in April-June 2012-13.
The Congress tweeted from its official handle, raising doubts that the GDP growth rate might be even lower.
Just an hour before the GDP numbers came out, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced mega mergers of ten public sector banks (PSBs) and pitched for a $5 trillion economy.
Twitterati were quick to react to the GDP crash and point out the ‘irony’ of Sitharaman’s claims.
Congress spokesperson Sanjay Jha called the crash in GDP data “a disaster” and said, “The economy is on a free fall. The informal sector that was destroyed by demonetisation and ham-handed execution of GST has now haemorrhaged the formal sector. The government has failed India.”
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