We were used to, we were accustomed to see that more than often, RE used to be less than BE. But during this period, we found a pleasant exception that RE was always more than BE. The Revised Estimate was always more than BE. This is the strength of the economy, tax GDP ratio, savings rate and your capacity to invest. What was the investment? During the NDA regime, the investment in terms of GDP was 25.2 per cent and during the UPA regime, it is 35.9 per cent. Now I come to rate of savings. During the NDA regime, it was 25.6 per cent. During the UPA regime, it is 34.8 per cent. Still, we are told that we have mismanaged the economy as a whole. I would just like to draw your attention, Mr. Speaker, Sir, and through you of the hon. Member of the House because to my mind, it is one great advantage which the NDA had to the prices of the crude oil. During the period of the NDA regime, the average price of crude oil was little more than $ 27 per barrel. I am talking of the average for the period of six years. When we assumed office, it started enhancing almost uninterruptedly. With the industrial growth, with the growth of economy, your consumption of imported crude will increase. You can imagine how much pressure it puts on the overall economy, overall resources. But because of the management, we did not feel the BoP crisis. Earlier, we had this problem at one point of time, for which we were maligned. I was the Finance Minister in the early 1980s. To overcome the bop crisis, when we entered into the extended funding facility with IMF of about 5 billion SDR, we were told that we had mortgaged the economic sovereignty of this country. Nothing happened We came out with our heads high from the building of IMF. We had not withdrawn even the last installment.
