Is the Indian Economy in Recession because of Covid-19 Pandemic?
The Indian finance minister Ms. Nirmala Sitharaman while addressing the annual general meeting of the Indian Chamber of Commerce (ICC) said that, While in early 2020 green shoots and revival signs of the economy were visible, it was upset with the pandemic setting in. the government has taken several of measures to support the economy but no amount of intervention will be adequate to deal with the crisis triggered by the Covid-19 pandemic. Ms. Sitharaman is dead wrong. Not only that, she is outright lying. Why? First, there were no green shoots and revival signs of the economy before the pandemic set in. Within a year time of the 2016 demonetization and then GST rollout in 2017 economy was on a continues decline as can be seen from figure 1 below ( source ). It never recovered from those double whammies of Modi government. Indian GDP Second, the present decline of the Indian economy in an official technical recession is not because of pandemic but because of government’s