Chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday said this year's Union budget was an absolute "economic jugglery" by the Narendra Modi government citing a recent report of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that raised concerns over the official estimates of the GDP, inflation and employment.

"We have presented a historic budget not related to elections, while the Union budget is total economic jugglery. The IMF has said there is something suspicious. A day will come when the World Bank will say it," said Mamata on the floor of the Assembly as part of her 55-minute speech on the state budget tabled by finance minister Chandrima Bhattacharya on February 8.

Although Mamata did not go into the details of the IMF report, her concerns have earlier ben raised by economists such as former chief economic adviser to the Centre Arvind Subramanian.

The latest advanced estimates show economic growth rate for 2023-24 to be 7.3 per cent, up from last year's 7.2 per cent.

Subramanian argued that the economy slowed down in 2023-24, reflected in nominal GDP estimates.

Central Statistical Office (CSO) estimates show that in 2023-24, the nominal GDP (at current prices) is around 9 per cent. It was 16 per cent in 2022-23.

"Official estimates imply that the value of the GDP deflator, which should correspond with the retail inflation rate, has fallen below 2 per cent in 2023-24. However, the monthly average consumer price index is growing at over 5.5 per cent for the 2023-24 fiscal," agreed economist Prasenjit Bose.

The IMF, in its latest Staff Report on India in November, pointed out: "There are still some weaknesses in the deflation method used to derive value added. Also, the compilation of constant price GDP deviates from the conceptual requirements of the national accounts, in part due to the use of the Wholesale Price Index (WPI) as a deflator for many economic activities."

Economist Ashok Lahiri, former economic adviser to the Centre and now the BJP Balurghat MLA, criticised the state budget claiming Bengal was in fiscal crisis and the situation would worsen if the state government continued with high expenditure without a clear roadmap on revenue mobilisation.

Mamata retorted: "In India, the projected GDP growth rate in 2023-24 is 7.3, whereas in Bengal it is 7.65. They don't like to praise their state.... The growth in index of industrial production (IIP) in 2023-24 in India was 5.8 per cent but in Bengal was 7.2 per cent."

Mamata countered the BJP's claim that she financed welfare schemes through loans: "They said we borrowed a lot.... There was no fiscal discipline during the Left rule. We created FRBM (fiscal responsibility and budget management) and we can't take any loan beyond our limitation. This is financial discipline."