UPA has developed complete policy paralysis: BJP

New Delhi, May 31 (ANI): Taking potshots at the Centre over India's economic growth rate slipping to 5.3 percent in the fourth quarter of 2011-12, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Thursday alleged that the UPA Government is suffering from complete policy paralysis and forgotten the art of governance.

Terming the present economic growth rate to be a horrible situation, BJP spokesperson Prakash Javadekar said: "It is a slow down government. It is a government, which has developed complete policy paralysis. It has forgotten the art of governance. There is no direction to the economic policy."

"The current account deficit is increasing more than what was there in 1991. And 70 percent of the current account deficit is being financed by short-term debts. The fiscal deficits, the revenue deficits is increasing, the unemployment is increasing. The prices are going up," he added.

Javadekar further poked fun at the UPA Government, saying its current achievement is that the corruption and inflation is going up and the value of rupee and the growth rate is going down.

"The ineptitude of the Indian Government is killing the India growth story. The growth story was essentially entrepreneur-led growth story, which took to the height of 9.5 percent at one time, even touched the nine percent on annual basis," said Javadekar.

"But it is has gone down now, it is coming down to six percent. Indian investors have lost all confidence, even the foreigners have lost confidence. The confidence index is also down. And this is the worst economic scenario ever presented," he added.

India's economic growth rate slipped to 5.3 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2011-12, lowest in nearly nine years due to poor performance of the manufacturing and farm sectors.

"The GDP growth at constant prices for 2011-12 has been revised downwards to 6.5 per cent as against the Advance Estimate of 6.9 per cent released in February 2012," Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee said earlier in the day in a statement on 'Revision in GDP Growth for 2011-12' and fourth quarter GDP estimates.

"This mirrors the quarterly trend in growth. The 2011-12 fourth quarter growth has been estimated at 5.3 per cent. These are disappointing figures in the context of our recent performance but have to been seen in the light of overall global developments," he added.

Mukherjee further said among the factors that have contributed to the slowdown are the tight monetary policy that led to a significant rise in the interest costs and the weak global sentiments that affected growth in domestic private investment.

"The domestic investment sentiments may have been also affected by the environmental policy bottlenecks in the mining sector," he added. (ANI)