Aswani Mahajan takes dig at Niti Ayog vice-chairman Rajiv Kumar

By Pragya Kaushika
New Delhi [India], Aug 23 (ANI): RSS on Friday criticised Niti Ayog vice-chairman Rajiv Kumar's recent comments stating that the ongoing financial crisis in India was "unprecedented in last 70 years".
Although Kumar backtracked from his statement, his remarks have not gone down well with those in and outside the government and other quarters.

The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh affiliate, Swadeshi Jagran Manch national co-convenor Ashwani Mahajan took a dig at Kumar and attributed his remarks to "too much reading of newspaper reports."
"What I feel is that vice-chairperson of Niti Ayog has got influenced by newspaper reports. Take Parle-G case, it has been denied by the company. I hardly see any big slowdown situation that we should be worried about. The need to do something about the liquidity is primarily because of the inefficient government system. Many dues of GST are pending towards traders, " said Mahajan.
Mahajan asserted that Kumar, even if he felt compelled to share his feelings about the economy, should have done it with the right person and audience.
"The vice-chairman of Niti Ayog has direct access to the Prime Minister office and he should have told this to him in a room rather than stating this in public and leading to a situation that may cause a lot of embarrassment to the government," stated Mahajan.
Elaborating, the SJM co-convenor said the reason Kumar spoke about the crisis was because non-banking financial services were not giving loans making loans affordability and accessibility a problem.
"I do not think there is any liquidity crisis if you look at the demand for air conditioners, fridge it is all going up. FMCG sector is doing good and recorded growth of 10 per cent in the last quarter. The only problem is the auto sector" he said.
He also cautioned the government against handing out stimulus packages to the corporates.
"Government should not come under the influence of the corporates to give stimulus packages as we have seen in 2007 and 2008 when the global crisis hit everyone. Under the guise of stimulus so much money was wasted and that increased the government deficit and lead to the huge inflation and the common suffered. If Niti Aayog is going to stress on such packages, we would oppose the step," he said. (ANI)