Former Reserve Bank of India Governor Raghuram Rajan raised doubts about the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government’s administration getting too centralised, The Economic Times reported on Friday. In an interview with the daily, Rajan expressed concerns about the Centre sidelining the bureaucracy.
The former RBI governor said that while Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had talked about removing impediments to bureaucratic efficiency, this had not happened. “I worry that the bureaucracy is not making decisions,” he said. “But we also have to ask...if we are trying to run the economy by a very small set of people.”
On the International Monetary Fund’s view that India would become the fastest growing economy in the world, the former RBI chief said economic growth should translate into job creation. “We really need growth for the jobs that our young people need. Even with this level of growth, are we creating those jobs?” he asked.
Rajan said India needed “massive investments” in job-creating activities like infrastructure and construction. He added that the government had not implemented big infrastructure projects that could create jobs.
The former RBI governor told the government that it needed to protect the privacy of the Aadhaar data. “I do think that we have to assure the public that their data are safe,” he said. “All these reports about easy availability of data are worrying. We cannot just say trust us, trust us, it is all secure and then have these reports coming out.”
Rajan also dismissed the continuing surge in the Indian stock markets as “part of a global trend”. “Look at the Hong Kong market. We are not alone [in the stock market rally].”
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