Economics
Modi Flying Blind Into Budget as India’s GDP a Guessing Game
- Statistics Office didn’t estimate impact of Modi’s cash ban
- Government advanced budget presentation by a month to Feb. 1
Narendra Modi.
Photographer: Graham Crouch/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s administration will probably have to prepare India’s $300 billion budget in the dark.
With less than a month to go before the annual presentation, his Statistics Office has refused to estimate the impact of Modi’s unprecedented cash clampdown on gross domestic product. All it said on Friday was that growth will slow to a three-year-low before the effects of the ban start to show.