‘Economy was in hands of a terrible doc during UPA’

New Delhi: Claiming India has moved from ‘fragile five’ to ‘bright spot’ in world, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Friday countered the Opposition charges on the country’s economic condition and stated that the NDA government inherited a lot of fiscal woes from the previous UPA government.

Mr Jaitley refuted Opposition charges on economic policy, saying structural reform may pose momentary difficulty initially but will prove to be beneficial in the long run.

While slamming his predecessor P Chidambaram for being a “know-it all” living under false “illusion”, he said the economy was in the hands of a “terrible doctor” under 10-year rule of UPA which pushed it to being in the fragile five economies in the world. “We have covered journey from policy paralysis to structural reforms, from economy being in fragile five to bright spot,” he said.

“UPA had unacceptable level of current account deficit, under BJP rule it has been less than 1 per cent. Fiscal deficit is qualitatively better and quantitatively lower than it was under UPA. Revenue deficit under UPA was unacceptable. We inherited 4.5 per cent fiscal deficit from UPA & have brought that down to 3.5 per cent,” Jaitley said in Rajya Sabha while replying to the Budget debate.