You cannot be poor and rich at the same time, can you?

Prime Minister Narendra Modi listed achievements of his government as inclusive development and steps to revive stalled projects. Inauguration of gas cracker project in Assam in 2016 and revival of sick fertilizer units in Gorakhpur in UP, Sindri in Jharkhand, Barauni in Bihar and Talcher in Odisha will stimulate infrastructure activity in allied sectors. These units were sick because they were making losses so whether they will become profitable or waste taxpayer money is not clear. Under his Ujjwala scheme 34.8 million households have been provided cooking gas connections and is to cover 80 million households in this year's budget. He forgot to mention that many of those provided with free gas connections cannot afford to refill their cylinders and so are back to cooking with wood. Under Saubhagya scheme the government is to spend Rs 160 billion to provide electricity to all households. The Uday project was supposed to rescue electricity distribution companies, which are controlled by state governments, from huge piles of debt, but reduced demand for electricity is causing debts to increase. Toilets may have been provided to 80 million houses but people still prefer to defecate outdoors. Toilets are seen as dirty and therefore should not be part of the living space. And, toilets can function only if there is a reliable water supply. The latest wheeze is to provide health insurance to 500 million Indians for inpatient treatment costing up to Rs 500,000 each. Trouble is, although talk maybe cheap schemes cost money, and fiscal deficit is already predicted to be 3.5% of GDP, instead of 3.3%, as promised earlier. So where is the money going to come from to finance all these schemes? From taxes. The Goods and Services Tax was supposed to combine all indirect taxes to make it easy for businesses and make goods cheaper by removing cascading central and state taxes. In reality, it has too many slabs, with added cess, which makes it too complicated, said a World Bank report. With a system is so complicated collections have fallen by Rs 340 billion. Target for direct taxes has been raised from Rs 9.80 trillion to Rs 10.05 trillion, so we can expect extreme tax terrorism. Customs duty has been increased across a wide range of products, with the excuse of protecting Indian industries. Since we import almost everything we use this will increase costs. Exporters are suffering because the government is unwilling, or unable, to refund their money. And yet the economy grew by 7.2% in the third quarter. Does that mean we are getting richer? Index of Industrial Production grew by 7.47% but retail inflation fell to 4.44%. Private final consumption expenditure fell from 6.6% to 5.5% and Service PMI fell to 47.8 in February, which shows a contraction. So people are getting poorer while the government is spending more on the poor.