Welcome to new beginnings in 2021.
The New Year raises new hopes, new expectations, new aspirations - even new anxieties. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has raised hopes by inviting ideas to spur growth with a promise to deliver a Budget like never before . Centre has shown an open mind to suggestions. That has given rise to the belief that the government will finally act on the biggest problem facing the economy - demand or consumption. Centre s attempts so far to accelerate supply-side economy, idolising the China model of investment-led growth has turned out to be a wrong diagnosis of the current state of Indian economy. It delivered neither investment, nor growth. Instead, it caused several quarters of unimpeded deceleration as demand collapsed on the back of slowdown, uncertainty and job losses. Covid only worsened the state of the economy.