Any other country or any other Government would have gone to town with this land mark achieved. But with the problems which have been plaguing  our present Government at the Centre, the achievement has gone totally unmentioned in the prime media and unheralded in political circles. I am referring to the achievement that we have crossed as on 31-3-2008. We have as on that date become a Trillion Dollar economy! Our National Income was at Rs43,00,000 crore. With the current Rupee-Dollar exchange rate, this works out to 1,08,000 crore Dollars. This is something which should have been blown up and a subject of a PR blitzkrieg for any government. Unfortunately, the present government has not done it, either because of the economic and political pressures it is under or because, it rightly feels that it has no credit to take in this achievement. When the UPA government inherited the governance of the country in the 2004 General Elections, the Economy was really looking gung-ho with all growth parameters poised in the correct direction. With the mishandling and over emphasis placed by the previous political grouping, the NDA, (remember the mis-fired “India-Shining” campaign ?) on its economic achievement, the verdict in the elections went in favour of the new grouping. The Nation was relieved when the reigns of the government was given to Dr. Manmohan Singh, who was the architect of the country’s economic upsurge in the first place. When the dream merchant, P.Chidambaram, joined him as the finance minister, we thought there was no looking back.  But four years down the line, we find a lame-duck administration, mired in controversies and contradictions of its own making. Today, we have a country, not very sure whether we can use the epitome “India Shining” or “India Rising”, without any hesitation. Political compulsions have made the government compromise on several issues directly affecting India’s growth path in the near and medium-term time frame. Inflation has been mismanaged to such an extent that we are faced with a four-year high of over 8% rate. The price spiral has broken the back of not only the common man but many an infrastructural and developmental project. With the clamping down on the lending funds of the Banks, as a reactionary step to the rising inflation and not a proactive step, has started having its effect on the performance of our industry. Investment, which even now is at a high level of 9.3% of the GDP, has started slowing down, with IPOs losing their sheen. We still do not have an answer to the spiraling oil price nor a solution for speeding up our infrastructure. We still have the Golden Quadrilateral project of the previous government to boast of in the Road sector. We still have most of the Power projects just on paper. Many good projects have failed to take off either due to local political opposition on land acquisition etc. or other compulsions. The best solution for our energy fuel needs has been clearly derailed by the scheming Left parties who have as good as killed the 123 Deal with the USA. No one in the government or the media is capable enough to call the bluff of the Left parties in this regard by pointing out that the deal was a far more improved version of similar deals signed by USA with Russia and China. Terrorism, which is the bane of India’s growth story, continues to haunt us, thanks to the soft stand of the present government, for more political than security considerations. 

On the whole, the picture appears to be gloomy. Yet there are indications that, given the proper boost, the economy will still gain momentum and match its competitors amongst the comity of growing economies, especially in the BRIC group. The silver lining is the forthcoming general elections, which hopefully, will return a single party or a group with far less contradictions than NDA or UPA.

Let’s hope that, when that happens, some one would remember the land mark achievement of our economy and celebrate our Trillion Dollar status, in an appropriate manner.  

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