5% is not enough. What about 3%?

Quoting Prof A Panagariya, S Chakrabarty wrote, "India's problem is not unemployment as such. Most people here find something or the other to do. The problem is a low productivity-low wage/income equilibrium." "India needs 8% growth sustained for two decades." However, growth rates can never again reach 10% because of "deglobalisation of trade, depopulation as labor forces shrink, declining productivity, and a debt burden as high now as it was on the brink of crisis," wrote Ruchir Sharma. "The benchmark for rapid growth should come down to 1-2% for developed economies, such as the United States, and to 3-4% for middle income countries such as China. For emerging nations such as India, 5% is the new 7%, the appropriate aspirational standard." In an effort to boost growth rate, "The Union cabinet cleared a raft of changes in foreign direct investment (FDI) regulations, including easing rules for overseas single-brand stores and permitting FDI through the automatic route in contract manufacturing and all areas of coal mining." Strangely, even as foreign companies will be allowed a free hand to mine India's coal, "India will be a key destination for coal from Adani's Carmichael mine in Australia's Galilee basin," said CEO of Adani Enterprises Ltd Vinay Prakash. "Coal from the Australia operation, known as the Carmichael project, would be transported to India, where the company is building a new power plant for nearly $2 billion to produce electricity. The power would be sold next door in Bangladesh." "The company also built a close relationship to Narendra Modi, the man who, in 2001, became the top elected official in Gujarat, and, in 2014, the prime minister of India," said an article in the New York Times. No one in India would dare to write such an article. "The beleaguered Indian economy is finally making a sensible bargain with the rest of the world: 'Take our billion plus customers, give us jobs'," wrote A Mukherjee. Modi has been prime minister for over 5 years now, so why weren't these changes made earlier? India can never grow like East Asian economies because, "Contrast those attitudes to India, where government is suspicious of the private sector, and elections are fought on promises of generous welfare benefits for the poor, the elderly, farmers and many others." wrote R Sharma. In East Asian nations, "Helping the young, old and poor was seen as the responsibility of the family, not the state." That means the government is ravenous for taxes. Investors in shares in India "already pay taxes in the highest brackets", wrote V Kedia. The budget massively increased the tax surcharge on foreign portfolio investors (FPIs), following which the stock market crashed. The budget also proposed 3 years in prison for officials if companies did not spend 2% of profits on charity. Both these proposals have been withdrawn. Revenue expenditure gobbles up 87.8% of the entire government spending, which is comprised of "payment of salaries, wages, pensions, subsidies and interest". As long as the government is looking for tricks to extract unreasonable taxes cosmetic changes will not work. Even 5% growth may be difficult.