It is a delicate balancing act.

At last a Finance Minister who is talking about lowering taxes instead of constantly looking to burden people with more taxes on every type of goods and services and then releasing the tax hounds on citizens to coerce people to pay more than they should. This is reflected in the large numbers of cases going to appeal, leading to trillions of rupees stuck in litigation. That is the worst possible outcome. People are unable to spend, which reduces consumption, the government has to refund vast amounts of money with interest, thus reducing its revenues instead of increasing them, and enormous amount of time is wasted, leading to frustration and anger. Trouble is that the Congress has left a completely bankrupt state, having spent money from this year's revenues. Contracts to build highways were awarded to private companies after collecting billions in ' premium '. In return these companies have been given the right to collect toll from all vehicles using the highways. Although called highways driving is a slow frustrating experience because frequent toll booths waste time, the price of fuel is very high and there are no restrictions on primitive modes of transport such as bullock carts. So companies are not making as much profits as they expected. Roads had been built with massive bank loans which they are unable to repay which has seen bad loans at public sector banks rise from Rs 600 billion in March 2010 to over Rs 2 trillion in March 2014. Private companies are now refusing to take on new projects so the government is being forced to pay for road construction. Good roads improve business and trade and eventually lead to higher taxes but that takes years so innovative ways of raising funds have to be found. Businesses always want very high prices to increase profits and shareholder returns but infrastructure is a national asset and very high charges for the end user add to inflation and reduce demand. So, mines, oil and gas fields and spectrum for telecom must be given, not by levying very high licence fees, but on a profit sharing basis so that companies make fair profits while the nation gets a fair return on its resources. This will keep costs down while encouraging more private investment. We understand that we have to pay for utilities or else they will fail but it is also true that if the cost of energy is too high manufacturing costs will also rise. We have massive coal reserves so we should be able to produce cheap electricity. The economy is completely toxic so it will need a delicate balancing act. We hope they have the wisdom.