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The last 12 years have been a "major historical turning point" in India's history, with the country successfully navigating multiple economic and global challenges under Prime Minister Narendra Modi's leadership, according to Sanjeev Sanyal, Member of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister.
Speaking in an exclusive interview with ANI, Sanyal said the government faced several difficult situations during the past decade, including the COVID-19 pandemic, banking sector stress inherited from the previous period, oil price shocks and the ongoing conflict involving the US and Iran. "So the last 12 years have been a major historical turning point in Indian history," Sanyal said. He noted that despite these challenges, policymakers were able to steer the economy through difficult conditions because of the Prime Minister's support for long-term policy reforms. "Despite these very difficult times, I can say that under Prime Minister Modi's leadership, policymakers have flexibly been able to navigate these very difficult waters and this was possible because of the fact that he has been willing to stand behind policymakers while they made difficult decisions," Sanyal said. He cited major reforms such as the introduction of the Goods and Services Tax (GST), inflation targeting and the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) as examples of significant policy decisions undertaken during the period. "For example, shifting to a GST based system, introducing inflation targeting, a very successful measure incidentally," he said. Sanyal also highlighted the banking sector reforms undertaken through the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code. "Cleaning up the banks using the insolvency and bankruptcy code. I mean, who knew that some of India's largest companies would be bankrupted and they would be sold off and the banking system would still come back stronger and with much better credit rights," he said. Referring to the current global environment, Sanyal said the world economy continues to face challenges from weak demand, elevated oil prices and concerns relating to Indians residing in the Middle East. "Even as we speak right now, the world economy is feeling a lot of pain, but as you know from the latest numbers, the economy grew by 7.8 per cent in the last quarter for which we have data, the January-March quarter," he said. He added that strong leadership becomes most visible during periods of uncertainty rather than during favourable economic conditions. "It's not really during the good times that good leadership shows through. It's really during the difficult times that I think Prime Minister Modi has repeatedly shown how to take decisions calmly and without losing cool, take long-term decisions, invest into infrastructure, invest into good policy making, and keep going," Sanyal said. (ANI)
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