Atanu Chakravarty

The False Claims of Economic Growth 

United Workers Resistance is the Need of the Hour!

India’s Finance Minister, while presenting the Union Budget in February 2021, had announced the privatization of Public Sector Banks (PSB) as part of the disinvestment drive to garner Rs 1.75 lakh crore. The Banking Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2021, which the government will soon introduce, is aimed at facilitating this process. This amendment seeks to bring down the minimum government holding in the PSBs from 51% to 26%.

While the economy is still languishing, the Finance Minister unabashedly claimed that the Indian economy is now on the path of robust recovery and has "put the effects of the pandemic far behind". This was the FM's  statement at the "Leadership Summit" organised by Hindustan Times. In the same summit, on 4 December 2021, Home Minister Amit Shah went a step ahead and said, "Indian economy is  fastest in the world to come out of the impact of the coronavirus pandemic because of the policy decisions taken by Modi Government".

Narendra Modi and the BJP came to power with a promise that they would double farmers' income by 2022. A committee was constituted in April 2016 to examine issues relating to the doubling of farmers' income. The Committee submitted its report to the government in September 2018 with the aim and strategy for doubling the income of farmers by 2022. The Committee further recommended that farm income has to grow at 10.4 per cent, at constant base-year prices, to achieve the goal.

Agrave crisis is looming large in the jute industry of Bengal on which thousands of workers families and a vast section of jute growers depend on to earn their bread and livelihood. The century-old traditional labor-intensive industry employs more than 2.5 lakh workers. Of late, the textile ministry of central government informed the state that procurement from the industry will be slashed due to the dearth of gunny bags and 45 percent of synthetic bags will be allowed for packaging wheat in the forthcoming rabi season.

Demonetisation in 2016, ‘Asset Monetisation’ in 2021.

In yet another move of dismantling the central sector, the Modi Government, in a swift move, decided to convert 41 Ordnance factories into 7 corporations which is expected to lead to privatization eventually. The Government ignored all previous commitments and implemented its well-designed plan of corporatization when negotiations were pending and when the conciliation process was inconclusive.

The lethal second wave of COVID has devastated the country's job market to unimaginable proportions. Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) has published data exposing the horrific reality of joblessness during the ongoing pandemic and recorded a loss of one crore employment, one of the steepest falls during the last four months!

 When the pandemic is raging the state with all ferocity, when health system is collapsing fast, the mill owners are closing the jute mills one after another in West Bengal causing severe resentment among workers and throwing thousands and thousands of workers' out of employment.