India has lowest per capita income among G20, BRICS countries: P Chidambaram

Congress leader P Chidambaram on Saturday tried to dispel notions about the rising economic clout of India among the world's biggest economies.

At the BT India@100 Summit in New Delhi, the former finance minister said India is among the world's largest economies only because of higher GDP, which is happening due to the country's large population.

Speaking to Rahul Kanwal, Executive Director - Business Today, Chidambaram said even if India becomes part of the G3, which will include US, China, he won't consider it as an achievement.

"Economic clout comes out of being world leaders in industry, technology rising per capita income. 50% of the country's population has 3% of the country's wealth. 23 crore Indians are in abject poverty," said the Congress leader.

"We are a poor country. Middle-income countries have per capita income of $12,000 while ours is $2,000. India becoming the third-largest economy is irrelevant. I will be proud when India becomes the third-largest economy in terms of per capita income, not in terms of GDP," Chidambaram added.

He also said that he is of the personal opinion that GST should be scrapped, which he termed as it being a 'mess'.

Chidambaram also weighed on the PM Narendra Modi government's handling of the Covid pandemic.

"Pandemic was indeed a black swan event, but it could have handled better and we might not have suffered plummeting negative growth. Vaccinations could have been ordered earlier, vaccine manufacturers could have been paid earlier and migrants shouldn't have been left to fend for themselves,' he said.

He also said that the number of Covid deaths in India could have been much more than the official figure of 5 lakh.

"In India, there are over 6 lakh villages, show me one village where not a single person died of Covid. WHO numbers don't agree with the country's numbers," he said.