We must remember.

As the rhetoric for the coming general elections heats up and everything gets clouded by lies about the economy, religion, caste, regionalism, criminality and corruption we should pause to remember what the Congress led government is leaving for us after 10 years. The Congress constantly harps on ' inclusive growth ' by which it means that it managed to include the poor in the growth of the economy. But did it? The Congress is particularly proud of the MGNREGA scheme which pays the rural poor for 100 days every year for doing nothing. Further, to protect the poor against rising prices it is linked to inflation and keeps rising at the same rate. When you dish out handfuls of cash you instantly increase the spending power of the poor, boosting the rural economy. But by setting a lower level to rural wages costs of farming are increased leading to a double digit rise in food prices. Spending Rs 2.3 trillion on this unproductive handouts does not increase employment or tax collections and results in increased government borrowing leading to increase in the fiscal deficit, which is also inflationary. Real wages, adjusted for inflation, grew by 11% in 2011 and by 10% in 2012 but has fallen to 3% in 2013. This is reflected in earnings of consumer goods companies which show a marked slowdown in rural sales. Rs 2.3 trillion would have built 45,000 km of rural roads, at an assumed cost of Rs 50 million per km, which would have generated much higher incomes by connecting farmers to markets and reduced inflation. Threatened with a fall in credit rating to junk status the Congress attempted to reduce deficits by increasing taxes on everything, especially services. The result, as any schoolboy would have predicted, has been a contraction in the services sector such that there is great rejoicing because the PMI for services came in at 48.3 which is higher than the December figure of 46.7. We must remember that any figure below 50 is contraction. To compensate for the soaring costs of living people cut down on saving. Savings have fallen from 38.1% of GDP in 2008 to 30.1% of GDP in 2013. Even worse, to protect their money people have moved from financial instruments to gold and properties leading to a huge property price bubble. Our largest bank, SBI has seen a 34% fall in profits due to bad loans. The list is long but we must remember when we vote.