Chennai, Mar 22 (IANS): Information and Broadcasting Minister Anurag Thakur on Friday said that India will become the third-largest economy in the world in the next three years.

Speaking at the Viksit Bharat Ambassador (VBA) meet-up programme here, the Union Minister said that in a span of 10 years, since Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government came to power at the Centre in 2014, the Indian economy has turned from fragile five to top five.

The Union Minister said that during the regime of the previous UPA government, there were a lot of corruption cases but since 2014, it was a clean government that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been leading.

He also said that during the UPA rule, the Indian economy was among the five fragile economies of the world and in the bracket of South Africa, Brazil, Indonesia and Turkey even when an economist (an oblique reference to former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh) was heading the country.

He, however, said that the former Prime Minister was under remote control, indirectly referring to Congress leader Sonia Gandhi.

He said that the country had then high inflation rates, debt rates, policy paralysis and this was mainly due to misgovernance.

The Union Minister said that the GDP rate has now gone up from 4.5 per cent to 8.5 per cent which was the highest in the world and at the same time, inflation has come down to 6.7 per cent now.

The FDI has increased from $35 billion to $85 billion and exports have increased from $300 billion to $770 billion.

Anurag Thakur also said that the 'Pradhan Manti Mudra Loan Yojana' was one of the major driving forces that boosted the economy, adding 65 per cent of the beneficiaries from the scheme were women.

He said that during earlier days, 430 million people were not associated with the banking system.

In two years, PM Modi's government opened 43 crore bank accounts for the people, Anurag Thakur said, adding this was done in two years -- something the Congress-led government could not do in so many years.

The Union Minister said that during the erstwhile Congress rule, as pilferage was huge, the money was not reaching the beneficiaries. "However, PM Modi used technology, Department of Telecom and linked Aadhaar and Jan Dhan accounts and money was reaching the beneficiaries 100 per cent," he said.

Anurag Thakur also said that every Indian is now secured under the 'Pradhan Mantri Suraksha Bima Yojana' which was never there before 2014.

The Union Minister also said that PM Modi-led government has provided 4 crore houses to the poorest of the poor.