Terming the 23.9 per cent fall in economic growth in June quarter alarming, former Reserve Bank Governor Raghuram Rajan has said bureaucracy should come out of complacency and take meaningful action. The current crisis requires a more thoughtful and active government, he said, adding “unfortunately, after an initial burst of activity, it seems to have retreated into a shell.”
"The sharp decline in economic growth should alarm us all. The 23.9 per cent contraction in India (and the numbers will probably be worse when we get estimates of the damage in the informal sector) compares with a drop of 12.4 per cent in Italy and 9.5 per cent in the United States, two of the most COVID-19-affected advanced countries,"Rajan wrote in a post on his LinkedIn page.
He further said the bureaucracy needs to “be frightened out of their complacency and into meaningful activity. If there is a silver lining in the awful GDP numbers, hopefully it is that''.
Rajan, currently a professor at the University of Chicago, said the COVID-19 pandemic is still raging in India, so discretionary spending, especially on high-contact services like restaurants, and the associated employment, will stay low until the virus is contained. The eminent economist pointed out that the government's reluctance to do more today seems partly because it wants to conserve resources for a possible future stimulus.This strategy is self-defeating," he opined.
Citing an example, Rajan said if one thinks of the economy as a patient, relief is the sustenance the patient needs while on the sickbed and fighting the disease.
"Without relief, households skip meals, pull their children out of school and send them to work or beg, pledge their gold to borrow, let EMIs and rent arrears pile up… Essentially, the patient atrophies, so by the time the disease is contained, the patient has become a shell of herself," he noted.
The former RBI Governor further said now think of economic stimulus as a tonic.
"When the disease is vanquished, it can help the patient get out of her sickbed faster. But if the patient has atrophied, stimulus will have little effect," he said.
Rajan stressed that the recent pick-up in sectors like auto is not an evidence of the much awaited V-shaped recovery.
"It reflects pent-up demand, which will fade as we go down to the true level of demand in the damaged, partially-functioning, economy," he noted.
Rajan pointed out that because of the pre-pandemic growth slowdown and the government's strained fiscal condition, officials believe it cannot spend on both relief and stimulus.
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