Visakhapatnam, April 29 (IANS) Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday said that the Modi government’s firm and visionary leadership over the past few years paved the way for the country’s robust growth and added that the country is set to achieve greater milestones in years to come.

She also attributed the fight against corruption, cutting down of red tape and facilitating ease of doing business as some of the reasons behind India being seen as the bright spot in the world.

Nirmala Sitharaman was addressing Viksit Bharat Ambassador Campus Dialogue at Gitam University in Visakhapatnam, this morning.

Addressing the gathering of Viksit Bharat Ambassadors, she also slammed the former finance minister P Chidambaram for describing the ‘transformational change’ as inevitable and saying that India was headed to become the third largest economy, irrespective of whomsoever is the Prime Minister.

She said that the growth in GDP does not happen automatically and this needs a lot of effort and a visionary leadership, which can stop corruption, and make sure skills are available and businesses have an environment to grow.

Notably, Chidambaram in an earlier statement had said “Prime Minister Narendra Modi is turning arithmetic inevitability into a guarantee.”

Countering ex-FM charge, Sitharaman said, “He says that given the population we have, there is no magic, we will become the third largest economy. The former finance minister is trying to create an impression which is completely untrue.”

“It’s not a mathematical inevitability. You need effort, you need a visionary leader, you need to stop corruption, you need to make sure that skills are available for our students, you need to make sure functions in delivering welfare schemes for common people, you need to make sure that poor get their due and you also need to make sure businesses have an environment to grow,” she added.

The FM also listed out many milestones achieved in Modi 1.0 and Modi 2.0 and highlighted how the economy lagged behind in the UPA eras.

“In 2004, when UPA came to power, India was at the 12th place. In 2007, it went to 14th place and in 2011 it came up to ninth place. In 2012 it slipped again to 10th place, in 2013 slipped further to 11th place and by 2014 it came to 10th place again,” she said and added that today India is the fifth largest and slated to become the third largest economy soon.

Nirmala Sitharaman further pointed out that except for the global financial crisis which happened in 2008, there were no major problems in those 10 years while there was a global pandemic in 2020 and despite that India reached fifth rank from the 10th rank in the last 10 years.

She said that economic growth needs a visionary leader who will ensure that corruption does not eat into the goodwill and earnings of common people.

“PM Modi has given a guarantee and with clean and transparent administration, we will make sure India reaches the third rank soon,” she said.