In a democracy wishing is of no value.

The Director General of the Confederation of Indian Industry presents a wishlist for this year's budget. The Congress could easily put an end to this annual circus by passing the Goods and Services Tax bill which will fix rates of indirect taxes and assist companies to invest in new projects, knowing what their future liabilities will be. This will set an upper limit on expenditure, helping to keep fiscal deficit under control. Politicians do not like their powers on spending to be curtailed. How else will they throw wads of currency in handouts to win votes? One easy and quick way to reduce expenditure is to use Aadhar numbers to pay salaries of central and state government and municipal employees, to cut out fraud in the form of 'ghost employees', and stop blatant theft of taxpayer money, as in laborers being paid Rs 450,000 per month by the Food Corporation of India. So what do our industrialists wish for? Increase consumer confidence by increased public spending. Consumer confidence can only increase if the burden of taxes is reduced and the spectre of inflation disappears. If prices continue to rise the purchasing power of the rupee will fall and so it will keep depreciating against the dollar. Taking the movement of currencies over the last 40 years an investment banker has calculated that anyone starting a job today will see a 5,000% drop in the value of the rupee so that it will cost Rs 150,000 just to fill a car with petrol. He recommends investing in gold to hedge against inflation and that is precisely what Indians are doing, with a jump in gold imports of 179% in December. The balance sheets of public sector banks need to be cleaned so that they can start lending again. All bad loans maybe transferred to a National Asset Management Company, a 'bad bank', which will be empowered to sell off assets of willful defaulters to pay off creditors. Some members of CII will be most upset if this actually comes to pass. Public-Private Partnership has been proven to be useless, as companies delay projects, constantly ask for higher toll and taxes and do not carry out proper maintenance. Low cost housing is a fantasy with land prices in Delhi and Mumbai the same as in Manhattan in New York. Poor people generally have larger families so a tiny flat will be inadequate and, if the project is far away to keep costs down, commuting costs will be prohibitive. There is much celebration of the demographic dividend in India. An aging population in Japan means that there are fewer young people paying taxes to provide old age care. But exactly the same is happening in India, only upside down. Less than 3% of Indians pay income tax and these people have very few children, whereas the poor have many children who are kept alive with massive subsidies. Perhaps, it will be better to wish on a shooting star.