The difference is more than 12 years, and growing.

"We are back to the 'Hindu rate of growth', where the average citizen would have to wait 70 years to see her standard of living double -- if she lived that long," wrote M Satyanand. India's GDP grew by 5% in the April-June quarter of 2019, while "Private consumption, the money our citizens spend on themselves, inched up by 3.1%". "Meanwhile population grew as well, by a little over 2%". "This means that over the last year, the average per capita consumption of the Indian citizen grew by just over 1%".  "India's gross domestic product (GDP) in 2019 will be around $2.9 trillion. China crossed that mark in 2007," wrote N Rajadhyaksha. "The average income in India in 2019 will be an estimated $2,972. China was at this level in 2006. Once again, it is a gap of a dozen years." China is 12 years ahead in economic growth but, "China had crossed India's current levels of social indicators when its per capita was far lower than $3,000". This was despite "steadily withdrawing the hand of the state from the economy" so that, "Between 1993 and 2005, Chinese state enterprises laid off 73 million people", wrote Ruchir Sharma, while in India "elections are fought on promises of generous welfare benefits for the poor, the elderly, farmers and many others". "India spends around 7.5% of GDP on social assistance, or at least three times more than what South Korea was spending at a similar income level." So, China improved lives of its citizens by creating jobs and not by distributing handouts. In India, on the other hand, "Between 1972 and 2004, every 1% of GDP growth led to a 0.5% growth in employment. Thereafter, the ratio dropped to 0.1% and never recovered."Indian households spent lesser on breads, cereals, pulses, milk and milk products, tobacco, communication, and recreational activity and personal effects in 2017-18 compared with the previous fiscal, data released by the statistics office showed on Friday." The government's response is to increase dearness allowance, which means cost of living addition, for its employees by 5%. Meanwhile the Reserve Bank (RBI) cut interest rate to 5.15%, the lowest since 2010. Which means private sector pensioners will receive 6-6.5% interest on term deposits in banks while government pensioners will receive 17% of pensions as bonus every month. Since people cannot spend the government has to spend more to stimulate the economy. Which means that it will have to borrow more which will increase fiscal deficit, increase the cost of borrowing for businesses by reducing liquidity and may cause inflation. R Jagannathan recommends borrowing in foreign currency by insuring foreign investors against depreciation of the rupee. "If we can draw 10-year funds in dollars and euros at 2-3% rates, the post-hedging returns needed to make such flows viable for investors would be 5% and upwards." So easy. But what if the bond holders suddenly want to sell out, as happened during the East Asian crisis? In other countries people have money to spend, in India the government has all the money. They are rich, we are poor.