Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Friday that India has a “strong base now to target a $ 5 trillion economy” and the country will come out of the current situation stronger, as his government has taken various corrective measures to revive the economy.

Before 2014 the banking system was in a bad shape. About Rs 6 lakh crore had to be provisioned to save banks. Thirteen banks are now back to profits, 6 banks are out of PCA (prompt correction actions), he said. The Prime Minister also assured that there won't be any action against genuine commercial failures.

There has been difficult times in the economy in the past too, but the country has always come out of such situations, the Prime Minister said. He said that there were times when the country saw 3.5 percent growth in a quarter and consumer price inflation (CPI) was at 9.4 percent, while CPI core inflation was at 7.3 percent, WPI was at 5.2 percent, and fiscal deficit was 5.6 percent.

The country has made itself strong in the past five years and hence it now aspire to become a $ 5 trillion economy.

“I knew that there will be an attempt to create negative sentiments when we declared a target of $ 5 trillion economy,” PM Modi said in a speech at the inaugural session of 100 years of Assocham.

Formalisation and modernisation of the Indian economy are going on and companies can now register themselves in a few hours. The government also used feedback from India Inc to modify goods and services (GST) structure.

The government has also done away with several clauses which would lead to criminal action for small errors by businesses. The country is moving towards a faceless tax administration system and it has now the lowest levels of corporate tax rate ever in India, he said.

First Published:Dec 20, 2019 1:41 PM IST