New Delhi: NITI Aayog vice-chairman Rajiv Kumar on Monday blamed the former Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Raghuram Rajan and his policies for the slowdown in the economy in the days that followed demonetisation.

To news agency ANI he said, “Growth was declining because of rising NPAs in banking sector. Because under previous governor Mr Rajan they brought in new mechanisms to identify stressed NPAs & these continued to go up which is why banking sector stopped giving credit to industry”


He further added " “It is a continuation of a trend of a declining growth, and why was this growth declining, it was declining because of the rising NPAs in the banking sector. When this government came into office that figure was 4 lakh crore, it rose to 10.5 lakh crore by the middle of 2017 because under the previous RBI governor, Mr. Rajan, they had identified mechanisms to identify stressed and non-performing assets which is why the banks stopped giving credit to industries,” .


When asked why the growth had slowed down post demonetization, he said “there was already a declining trend in the economy. Starting from the last quarter of 2015-16, the growth rate had come down for six successive quarters.”