Who knows if it is cyclical or structural?

To alleviate the slowdown in the Indian economy we have to understand that, "The structural versus cyclical distinction is extremely important because this has a direct bearing on the choice of policies to boost economic activity," wrote R Kishore. Those who believe that the problem is cyclical lay the blame on the 'policy paralysis' of the Congress-led government prior to 2014, which led to the 'twin balance sheet problem', wherein companies saddled with huge debt could not invest in new projects while banks refused to lend until all the bad loans had been cleared. Those believing in the structural argument point to continuous fall in intention to invest in new projects, shown by the investment data from the Center for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE). Slowdown means a drop in the growth rate of the gross domestic product (GDP) which is "the sum of consumption expenditure, investment, government expenditure and net exports (exports minus imports)," wrote V Kaul. On consumption: Domestic car sales fell by 23.3% during April-June 2019 compared to the same period last year, two-wheeler sales fell 11.7%, tractor sales, an indicator of rural demand, fell 14.1%, unsold housing units increased from 1.2 to 1.28 million units, non-oil, non-gold imports fell 5.3% and growth of fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) fell from 12% to 5%. Announcement of new projects fell by 79.5% and of completed projects by 48%. Naturally, growth in bank lending to industry, rail freight and steel consumption was weak. Government expenditure contributes 10-11% of the economy but growth in tax revenue is weak, so the government cannot stimulate the economy by increasing spending, and net exports were slightly better at minus $46 billion, compared to minus $46.6 billion in 2018. Tax collections grew by 1.4% from April to June 2019 compared to last year and "The shortfall in the Center's GST (goods and services tax) collections was as high as 22% in the last financial year" wrote N Kwatra. The way to judge if revenue is increasing is to measure tax buoyancy which is "calculated by dividing the annual growth in gross taxes by annual growth in nominal GDP", wrote R Kishore. Tax buoyancy is falling, probably because "the official statistics have been overestimating GDP growth". "Taxpayers after all pay taxes on actual incomes rather than what the Central Statistical Office thinks incomes are." "Nationally, only 1.8% of the population reported receiving formal vocational/technical training in 2017-18," wrote Anand and Thampi. "But about 42% of youth who received formal training were not part of the labor force at all (that is they were not working or seeking employment opportunities, they reported)." If people don't work they do not pay income tax and they cannot spend, so GST collections fall. Regular salaried workers comprise just 8% of the workforce, wrote Anand and Thampi, and 45% of those earned less than Rs 10,000 per month and 12% earned less than Rs 5,000 per month. No jobs, no money, no taxes. Cyclical or structural, doesn't matter.