If you drive from Delhi to Vadodara in Gujarat, a distance of about 1000 km, you will be stopped 18 times to pay toll for a total of Rs 751, which is a tax of Rs 0.75 per km. Trucks have to pay anywhere from Rs 500-800 per stop which means that a truck will pay around Rs 10000 for delivering cargo and the same for returning empty. This is an extortionate tax on commerce which explains why growth will not be possible without stoking inflation. So lucrative is this extortion that construction companies compete to pay the government anything up to Rs 1 billion to secure a contract for building a highway for which they may spend Rs 300 billion. In return they are allowed 30 years of free hand to loot Indians, earning trillions. God knows what percent the politicians are getting out of this ' highway robbery '. The Sun, a UK tabloid, exposed that the British government earns 31.5 billion pounds every year from vehicle and fuel excise duty of which only 13.4 billion is spent on maintaining roads and environment, netting the treasury 18.1 billion or 293 pounds per person per year. A study by Taxpayers Alliance showed that rural people paid 566 pounds per head per year while urban people paid 35 pounds because of better public transport in cities and towns. Sadly we have no such study in India. Exorbitant taxes fuel inflation and make us poorer. Car sales are down more than 25% and now moped sales are also declining showing stress on rural incomes. The Congress must be delighted. Their survival depends on the naked aam aadmi which allows them to arrange easy to loot social schemes which makes them rich and khas. Great.