New Delhi: The Congress on Friday termed as a "lie" Prime Minister Narendra Modi's remarks that the government's mudra scheme gave a boost to employment and alleged that he had conducted a "surgical strike" on jobs last year.
Congress spokesperson Jairam Ramesh, at a press conference, cited data by the Centre For Monitoring Indian Economy to claim that in 2018, 1 crore jobs were destroyed in various sectors due to demonetisation and hasty implementation of the Goods and Services Tax.
"It is the first time in history that under a Prime Minister jobs have not been created but destroyed, and history will remember him as a 'jobs destroyer PM'," he said.
In an interview to a TV channel, Prime Minister Modi said, "Imagine, 4 crore people, it's a total of 15 to 17 crore - exact number will be here or there - who have taken money from banks via the mudra scheme. 4 crore people have taken money for the first time. They must have started some employment, they must have employed somebody."
Ramesh said, "The Prime Minister says that there has been a revolution in creating jobs through Mudra. I haven't heard a bigger lie than this."
"In 2017-18, close to 90% of the loans had an average size of Rs 24,840. This is completely inadequate for even one job, let alone 2-5 as claimed by the Prime Minister," he said.
Only two per cent of Mudra loans were greater than Rs 5 lakh under which employment conceivably could be generated from the returns of the loan, Ramesh said.