Trade Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnau has lashed out at former central bank governor Raghuram Rajan
Bangalore:
Trade Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnau on Saturday called former central bank governor Raghuram Rajan a politician “shadowboxing for someone”.
Vaishnau’s remarks were in response to questions about Rajan’s reported statement that India does not manufacture mobile phones under the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme, but only assembles them. .
“When a good economist becomes a politician, he loses his economic sense. Raghuram Rajan has become a politician. It’s not good to shadowbox.” He’s trying to shadowbox for someone else,” Vaischno asserted.
He said India will achieve more than 30 per cent value addition in electronics manufacturing in the next two years. Separately, the three companies will soon manufacture key mobile phone components for the world, he added.
Weishnau said all countries that started manufacturing electronics have followed the path of first bringing in fully knocked down (CKD) and half knocked down (SKD) parts and then assembling the product. Furthermore, the production of the various components is followed by the production of the system.
The minister said today’s global supply chains are so complex that no country can claim a value added of more than 40%.
According to him, 40% is the highest value added any country can ask for in electronics manufacturing and India will reach over 30% value added within two years.
“So this kind of shadowboxing that Mr. Raghuram Rajan is doing is not a fair act. He is a very good economist. I demand it,” he quipped.
Former central bank governor Rajan briefly accompanied parliamentary leader Rahul Gandhi to Rajasthan during the nationwide Bharat Pure Land Yatra from Kanyakumari to Kashmir. Between national marches, Gandhi also met with senior economists.
(Except for the headline, this article is unedited by NDTV staff and published from a syndicated feed.)