Had excellent experience working with Gujarat govt under Mr Modi: Nobel laureate Abhijit Banerjee

In a press confrence on Friday last Piyush Goyal had said, "Abhijit Banerjee won the Nobel prize, I congratulate him. But you all know his views about economy. His thinking is totally Left-leaning. He had heaped praise on the NYAY scheme, but the people of India totally rejected his thinking." 

Reacting to the comment Banerji said he is a professional and he would have been willing to help anyone who has legitimate economic questions without judging their motives.

"If the BJP government, like the Congress party, had asked what were the numbers on the fraction of people under a particular income, would I have not told them the truth? I would have told them exactly, I would have been as willing. In terms of being a professional, I want to be professional with everyone," he told NDTV. 

"I might be partisan privately about several things, but I am not partisan in my economic thinking," he added.

"We have worked with many state governments in India, many of which were BJP governments, including Gujarat and Haryana, and we had no problem working with any state that wanted rigorous evolution of its policies," he stated.

Speaking about working with Gujrat government when Prime Minister Modi was the Chief Minister, he said, "We worked with the Gujarat pollution board when Gujarat was under Mr (Narendra) Modi and we actually had an excellent experience. I would say that they were willing to engage with the evidence and they implemented policies that followed with that experience."

Reiterating his comment that the Indian economy is in a state of crisis, with a marked decline in consumption Banerjee said, "You have to take it seriously that the economy is in crisis. If you look at that one number that jumps out at me from the analysis of the NSS (National Sample Survey) data, it is the average consumption in India. We are slightly lower today than it was in 2014-15. That's the unprecedented event."

The economist said the decision-making process has slowed down in India and added "institutions have been reduced to zombies".

"People in the places of decision making seem to see over the shoulder and thinking should I take this decision..there is a lot of ...maybe fear of if I make a mistake do I get punished for it," he said.

"I think it is important to reassure people that mistakes are part and parcel of decision making. There needs to be more forbearance," he added.

"In the last days of the UPA (United Progressive Alliance), the institutions were all aggressive. It was probably a good idea in the long run, but in the short run a lot of business people were upset about it. What happens now is that these institutions exist, but they don't take decisions anymore," Banerjee said.

Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo, professors of Massachusetts Institute of Technology(MIT) and Michael Kremmer of Harward University have together won the 2019 Nobel Prize for "for their experimental approach to alleviating global poverty."