Very difficult to cut what you are used to.

The Prime Minister wants the Indian economy to grow by over 10% per year, to increase our share of global exports from 1.6% to 3.4%, to reduce imports by 10% and create large number of jobs. "Through domestic manufacturing, if we reduce imports by 10 per cent, it could create in the country an increase in income worth Rs 3.5 lakh crore. It will contribute in moving the country towards double-digit GDP," he said. 'If wishes were horses beggars would ride'. Experts cautioned that we should first try to get our growth up to 8% before thinking about 10%. Former Chief Economic Adviser A Virmani tweeted, "I have heard this many times before. In fact every time growth rises above 7%, we start hearing about the chimera of double-digit growth. The reality is that we have not been able to maintain 8% growth for even a couple of (consecutive) years." Growth rate was 6.7% in the last financial year 2016-17 compared to 5.5% in 2012-13. Yet gross fixed capital formation, GFCF, which stand for private investment, and private final consumption expenditure, PFCE, which shows consumer spending, were lower last year than in 2012-13. As a percentage of GDP, exports have fallen to their lowest level in 14 years. According to a Reserve Bank of India survey, jobs shrank by 0.1% in 2015-16. Growth has been almost completely dependent on government spending but that is under strain. The government took advantage of low oil prices by massively increasing taxes on oil. Prices have gone up this year and the recent meeting of OPEC a few days ago resulted in a hardening of price despite a resolution in favor of increasing output by 1 million barrels per day. Oil is trading at near $70 a barrel. Naturally, high price of crude has pushed the price of petrol in India to near Rs 80 per liter, which will add to inflation as cost of transport goes up. The Finance Minister confessed that reducing the price of fuel will push the government into a debt trap, meaning that the fiscal deficit will go out of control. One way of raising money is to cut waste and sell off some public sector company. Air India fits the bill perfectly. It has cumulative debts of around Rs 500 billion and is losing up to Rs 50 billion per year. It has the highest ratio of staff to passengers, salaries are way too high and its managers are civil servants and so have no idea of how to run an airline. But no one dares to mention the real reason the government wants to keep such a high stake in the airline. It is because politicians have been using it as their private property. A former minister ordered a larger plane for his daughter's in-laws which meant that the plane flew half empty. The Prime Minister is also milking Air India. No private company is going to pay for these. And therein lies the nub.