An old letter written by BJP MP Nishikant Dubey to Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2018, in which he raised concerns about the economic policy approach of then Economic Affairs Secretary Subhash Chandra Garg, has resurfaced days after Garg questioned the government’s latest GDP figures.
Dubey had urged PM Modi to review Garg’s approach, arguing that it placed excessive emphasis on fiscal consolidation and numerical targets at a time when India needed higher public investment, greater liquidity and stronger private investment.
The letter, dated March 3, 2018, has come to light after Garg questioned whether the reported 7.8% GDP growth in the first quarter of FY 2026-27 accurately reflected the pace of economic activity.
Dubey also took to Twitter and recalled his earlier criticism of Garg.
“I had written back in 2018 itself that the former Finance Secretary is ignorant. A person does not become wise from the pinnacle of foolishness,” Dubey said in a post in Hindi.
Garg was serving as Economic Affairs Secretary when Dubey wrote the letter, a position he held from July 5, 2017, to July 26, 2019. He later became Finance Secretary on March 1, 2019, and remained in the post until July 26, 2019.
In his letter, Dubey urged PM Modi to review what he described as Garg’s economic policy approach, saying it required urgent reconsideration in the larger interest of India’s growth and development.
“I wish to draw your kind attention to certain serious concerns regarding the economic policy approach being advocated by the Secretary, Department of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance, Shri Subhash Chandra Garg, which, in my considered view, requires urgent review in the larger interest of the country’s growth and development,” Dubey had written.
The BJP MP specifically objected to what he saw as an excessively restrictive approach to the fiscal deficit. He argued that while fiscal responsibility was important, it could not be separated from India’s development requirements.
“Fiscal consolidation should therefore remain a means towards achieving sustainable prosperity and economic stability, and should not become an end in itself,” he wrote.
Dubey also called for greater flexibility under the Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management Act, 2003.
He argued that extraordinary infrastructure requirements, subdued private investment, global uncertainty and strategic priorities could at times require temporary flexibility in the fiscal-deficit path.
“The objective should not merely be to achieve a particular fiscal-deficit percentage on paper, but to determine whether Government expenditure is productive, growth-generating and capable of creating long-term national assets,” Dubey wrote.
Dubey also linked his concerns to the government’s infrastructure plans, citing projects and programmes including industrial corridors, Bharatmala, Sagarmala, railway investment, UDAN, airports, highways, ports and inland waterways.
“These programmes are not merely expenditure. They constitute productive capital formation which will reduce logistics costs, improve connectivity, attract industries, generate employment, and increase India’s productive capacity for decades,” he wrote.
He argued that such projects required substantial public capital expenditure and that government investment could help crowd in private investment.
“It is therefore important that the Ministry of Finance does not allow an excessively restrictive fiscal approach to slow down the implementation of your Government’s development agenda,” Dubey wrote.
The Godda MP said his concerns were based on his interactions with Garg while the latter was Economic Affairs Secretary.
“From my interactions with the Economic Affairs Secretary, I have developed a serious apprehension that his approach is not sufficiently aligned with the scale, urgency, and ambition of the economic transformation envisioned by you and our Government,” Dubey wrote.
Dubey urged Modi to personally review Garg’s positions on fiscal-deficit policy, the FRBM framework, liquidity and the cost of capital, private investment, foreign and domestic capital formation, and financing for the government’s infrastructure programme.
“My concern is not regarding an individual but regarding the direction of economic policy at an extremely important stage in India’s development,” he wrote.
He warned that excessive fiscal and monetary conservatism could slow the pace of development and called for an “urgent” review of the matter.
The resurfacing of Dubey’s letter comes days after Garg questioned the government’s GDP numbers.
Garg pointed to a revision in the current-price GDP figure for the first quarter of FY 2025-26 and said the revised data put nominal GDP growth for that quarter at 10.3%.
“If you had taken the numbers which were put out last year as the GDP at current prices, the growth is less than 2.5% at current prices, nominal GDP,” Garg said.
Garg was transferred from the Finance Ministry to the Power Ministry in July 2019 and took voluntary retirement from the IAS on October 31 that year.
The latest exchange has brought his earlier tenure at the Finance Ministry and Dubey’s 2018 concerns over economic policy back into focus.