The US can spend because it has, we are empty.

Manufacturing, mining, construction, trade, hotels & restaurants and transport, "taken together, account for more than two-fifths of India's gross domestic product (GDP)" and "the same sectors, taken together, also account for more than two-fifths of total employment", wrote Prof Deepak Nayyar. With the economic shutdown due to the coronavirus, millions are out of work. "The poor, identified as 50% and 75% of urban and rural households respectively, should be provided with cash support of Rs 6,000 per months for 3 months", along with free food. Fiscal deficit was Rs 10.36 trillion in February, or 135% of the revised estimate of Rs 7.67 trillion for the last financial year. The government should spend Rs 6-10 trillion (3-5% of GDP), "financed by monetizing the deficit -- RBI buying government T-bills -- printing money, now described as 'helicopter money'", thinks Nayyar. This was also the view of Swaminathan Aiyer who pointed to the $2.2 trillion stimulus in the US to justify "extra borrowing, financed entirely by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) printing money". In addition to the fiscal stimulus in the US, the Federal Reserve rolled out a "$2.3 trillion effort to bolster local governments and small- and mid-sized businesses..." To infuse more money into the economy the Fed is to buy "more classes of low-rated and riskier bonds", including municipals bonds, which it has never done before. We cannot stitch masks and gowns because we do not have the machines. More than two weeks after the lockdown began the government has decided "to grant exemptions from basic customs duty and health cess" on the import of "ventilators, face masks & surgical masks, PPE and covid test kits". Tax on illness and death. So, we are forced to buy ventilators and masks from China "even though some countries in Europe had complained about the quality of the equipment". Spending dollars to buy rubbish. Robert Subbaraman, Chief Economist at Nomura thinks that India will not feel the slowdown in global trade because it is not a part of the Asian supply chain centered on China. "Indian exports have been in a slump for a large part of the past decade" and "we may need to borrow money from abroad to bridge a hugely enlarged fiscal deficit", wrote an editorial in the Mint. The Budget allocated Rs 24.5 trillion to revenue expenditure out of a total expected spending of Rs 27.86 trillion. Revenue expenditure is comprised of salaries, wages, pensions, subsidies and interest on debt which means that it is fixed. The projected revenues in the Budget were extremely optimistic, if not fanciful. The virus is going to hit tax collections very hard. Print rupees and risk a devaluation or increase taxes and risk a collapse in consumption? If only they hadn't wasted the windfall from oil.