Can Sinha turn the gloom into a boom?
The time has come for Mr. Yashwant Sinha to show his macro- management skills. On that will depend how the economy performs this year, writes ALOK MUKHERJEE. THE FINANCE Minister, Mr. Yashwant Sinha’s lament is probably right. Despite projections that the economy would grow by six per cent plus this year, there seems to be an orchestrated campaign of late to spread gloom. And that too when the economy officially grew 6.4 per cent last year and that was considered a good record. The word slow-down has been bandied about so much that the Finance Minister is now forced to use every forum available to him to say that yes, there are challenges before the economy, but things have not turned dark all of a sudden. Estimates at the beginning of this fiscal year had put the growth rate of the economy at around seven per cent. But many economists took this with a pinch of salt – calling the seven per cent projection nothing but wishful thinking, given the performance of some critical segments. Bu
