Most of our growth came from scams.

A couple of days back the World Business Report on the BBC showed a group of young women eating sushi at a " kitty party " inside a luxury mall. There is so much money in India now that the top designer labels are opening outlets in cities, confident of handsome profits. And yet we are told that only 35 million people pay any income tax and the Congress has been spending trillions of rupees in the name of " inclusive growth ". Bank loans to farmers were forgiven, the MNREGA scheme pays the rural poor for 100 days a year for fictitious work, farmers are paid a Minimum Support Price for grains which is higher than the market price, tribals will be paid a MSP for forest produce, The Food Security Bill promises to provide wheat at Rs 2 per kg and rice at Rs 3 a kg to around 800 million poor people, a Backwards Regions Grant, Below Poverty Line cards which are better than winning a lottery and an endless list of handouts. If we are such a poor country who buys handbags for Rs 2 million each and shoes for Rs 1 million each? How did they make so much money? We have people like the late Ponty Chadha who could get monopoly license to sell liquor as well as permission to provide midday meals in schools in UP because of his proximity to politicians. There are the Reddy brothers who were making trillions from illegal mines in Karnataka and 2 former Chief Ministers were named in the Goa mining scam. A report by the Comptroller and Auditor General estimates that Rs 1.86 trillion were lost in the Coalgate scam in which mines were distributed to family and friends.  Then there were the 2G scam, the Commonwealth Games scam, the Tetra trucks scam, the Scorpene submarines scam, the Augusta-Westland helicopters scam, the Railway Board scam and other scams yet to be reported. Billionaires in India refuse to repay loans taken from banks. They use their connections to politicians to get bank officers to restructure loans by issuing new ones. Banks are sitting on trillions of rupees of Non Performing Assets. A report by Credit Suisse says that 10 large infrastructure companies have combined bank debt of Rs 63.1 trillion, which is half of the GDP of India. That is why land prices are zooming up, inflation is uncontrolled and luxury retailers are coming here. The vaunted growth is built on stolen wealth which is why it is not generating taxes. BBC should not be surprised.