the goan I network
PANAJI
The Congress on Tuesday submitted a memorandum to the Prime Minister Narendra Modi through the Goa Governor over the economic slowdown in the country and specifically, Goa.
The Congress memo, signed by leader of opposition Digambar Kamat and GPCC chief Girish Chodankar, stated, “The mining industry was shut down by the local BJP government which has resulted in the collapse of the Goan economy. The failure of the government to take corrective measures and resume mining activity is condemnable. If immediate steps are not taken to restart mining, it will be disastrous.”
The memo goes on to state that the present government in Goa has also failed to encourage and promote the tourism industry. “There is sharp fall in chartered flights and the local tourism stakeholders have expressed fears of decline in the number of tourists this year,” the memo stated, pointing also to the unemployment problem for which they blamed local BJP government’s lack of planning to provide jobs to youth.
“The government is calling the present slowdown as cyclical. Thank god they have not called it seasonal. In reality, the present slowdown is structural and the government has no solutions or reforms that would address the structural problems,” states the memo.
Citing that the Congress-led UPA lifted 140 million people out of poverty between 2004 and 2014, Kamat and Chodankar alleged that the BJP government has, since 2016, pushed millions of people below the poverty line.
“The economy can be brought out of the slowdown, but this government is incapable of doing that. We are confident that the Congress and some other parties are better equipped to pull the economy out of the slowdown and push economic growth, but we have to wait for better times,” the Congress stated.
It demanded that the Prime Minister spend “some serious time with economists and experts to get our country out of the economic mess and save it from destruction due to faulty policies to save thousands of youths, small entrepreneurs, and the hard working farmers and the people of India.”
