” Take steps, bold decisive steps now “: Congress leader P.Chidambaram to the union government

New Delhi: Former union minister and veteran Congress leader P.Chidambaram has advised the union government to print more money to meet the government expenses. The senior Congress leader in a press conference also advised the union government to take bold, decisive steps to face the third wave of Covid-19 infection.

“If necessary, the Government must print money. We have space and sovereign right to print money and if at any point the Government feels that too much is being printed, it can always stop printing it”, said the former finance minister.

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“At the moment, I think, printing money is clearly advised. I am very happy that someone, so distinguished as Dr. Abhijit Banerjee has supported the idea. There are many other economists, who have recommended that the Government must print money to support its expenditure”, he added.

“What we need is, we cannot lose another year like we have lost the whole of the last year and I am afraid, the way this government is reacting, it is going to lose another year. Fortunately, we are only at the beginning of June, we still have 10 months. This is the time to act, this the time to act boldly and decisively- borrow and spend. If necessary- print money and spend on health care, spend on infrastructure,” he said about the second wave of coronavirus infection.

“No one can predict when things will get better, because we do not know whether there will be a third wave or a fourth wave. All we can say is, if you do not do the steps that we are advocating, things will not get better. Would you rather quietly sit, do nothing. This will certainly result in disaster. Take steps, bold decisive steps now’ and try to see whether you can ward off a greater disaster. Unless you take steps now, how will you prevent the consequences of a third wave or a fourth wave, this is the mistake they made last year, they did not take the steps that we advocated, and when the second wave came, they were unprepared both on the health infrastructure side and on the economic management side”, said the Congress leader.