Congress slams government, says stagnant wages led to economic slump

NEW DELHI: Congress on Saturday attacked the Modi govt over India's economic growth slowing to near two-year low with the party's general secretary in-charge of communications Jairam Ramesh saying that the GDP growth figures released on Friday for July-Sept are much worse than anticipated, with India recording a measly 5.4% growth and consumption similarly growing by an unimpressive 6%.

"The PM and his cheerleaders are wilfully blind to the causes of this sharp slowdown, but a new report on 'Labour Dynamics of Indian States' released by a leading Mumbai-based financial information services company, India Ratings and Research, reveals its real cause: stagnant wages," Ramesh said in a statement.

He went on to highlight that that the report uses Periodic Labour Force Survey data to show that overall real wage (adjusted for price rise in each state) growth at the national level has been flat at 0.01% over the last five years.

"In fact, workers in Haryana, Assam, and UP have seen their real wages decline in the same period. This is hardly the exception - nearly every piece of evidence points to this same damning conclusion: that the average Indian can buy less today than they could 10 years ago. This is the ultimate root cause for India's growth slowdown, and multiple sources of data have now confirmed this wage stagnation," he alleged.

"The fundamental cause for this is stagnant wages for crores of workers. How long will this grim reality continue to be ignored? The people of India continue to live in hope while the Prime Minister generates hype," he said.