Household sector not in distress, Congress offering ill-informed arguments: BJP

New Delhi, Sep 25: The BJP on Tuesday asserted that the country’s household sector is not in distress and hit out at the Congress, accusing it of offering “hare-brained and ill-informed arguments” to show the government’s management of the economy in bad light.
The BJP’s reaction came after Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh on X cited a media report and accused the Narendra Modi government of “mismanagement of economy” and having “misplaced priorities”, claiming that households are unable to save due to high inflation and stagnant wages.
BJP IT department head Amit Malviya on X said, “The Congress just loves to foolishly jump on any and every issue without even doing basic checks…Besides, it is a bit rich coming from the Congress, whose tenure from 2009-14 has been nothing short of an economic disaster for India.” “It would be best if the Congress delved into issues before offering hare-brained and ill-informed arguments,” he said.
In his post on X, Ramesh said, “Many economists have raised the following critical issues: Due to high inflation and stagnant wages, households do not have sufficient funds to save. The savings rate is at its lowest in many decades. Reduced savings means less capital available for business and government investment. Instead, India will have to depend on volatile foreign capital for financing.” The share of the housing loans, out of all personal loans, is below 50 per cent for the first time in five years, which is a matter of serious concern, showing that increase in household liabilities is driven by distress, the Congress leader claimed.
In an apparent dig at Ramesh, Malviya said, “Here are the facts, which Congress’ Mr ‘Know-it-All’ has missed.” The Stock of Household Gross Financial Assets went up by 37.6 per cent between June 2020 and March 2023 and per capita income doubled since 2014-15, the BJP leader said.
There has been “a steady double-digit growth” in loans for housing since May 2021, he said.
“So, financial liabilities have been incurred to buy real assets. Vehicle loans have been growing at double digit (Y-o-Y) since April 2022 and more than 20 per cent (Y-o-Y) since September 2022,” he said.
“Clearly, the household sector is not in distress. It is not a sign of distress on the part of households but of confidence in their future employment and income prospects,” Malviya said on X.
This has been “amply” brought out in the recent consumer confidence survey of the RBI and the C-Voter survey of consumer optimism conducted in July and August, respectively, he said. (PTI)