Failed attempt at a cover-up.

The Center will not pay compensation to states for a shortfall in goods and services tax (GST) collection, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said. It is no one's fault because "if one went back and looked at growth across nine key emerging economies since the turn of the decade, real GDP growth has slowed sharply in all of them", wrote VA Nageswaran. Maybe, but no other country suddenly destroyed 86% of its currency against the advice of its central bank that it would have no effect on black money. Instead, it resulted in destroying livelihoods as unemployment increased, investment dropped and spending by households actually declined for the first time in 4 decades. Even as the poor suffered, Prime Minister Narendra Modi benefited politically by distributing largesse, which is why the government is broke at present. Because of Indian statistical agencies "The GDP estimation methodology showed higher growth than what was actually obtained in 2016-17 and 2017-18", thus "dulling responses" from the Center, wrote Nageswaran. The Central Statistics Office (CSO), "under the guidance of Niti Aayog", created GDP data which showed higher growth rate under Modi government than under the previous one, wrote Ajay Chhibber. Two independent statisticians resigned when the government suppressed their employment report. "The growth malaise is global and the pandemic has been an unfortunate and involuntary import." The virus may have been imported but the extremely strict lockdown was enforced by the Indian government on the day when there were only 564 cases and is being eased as cases rise to over 80,000 per day, the highest rate in the world. "Much of the problem lies with India's disastrous management of the pandemic," wrote Prof Kaushik Basu. "While our cities, factories and transport, and therefore the economy, were totally locked down, it was evident that no plan had been made for tens of millions of migrant workers who were suddenly left with the stark choice of remaining locked down and perishing or trudging hundreds of miles across the nation, just to go home." "The Narendra Modi government did not inherit a constitutional GST arrangement from its framers. This tax regime, the revenue compensation arrangement between the Union and the states, and the related constitutional contract are entirely its design," wrote Prof Shruti Rjagopalan.  Defaulting on a constitutional obligation is worse than defaulting on sovereign debt. Faced with falling revenue states may levy their own taxes or break away from GST. Against a government target of Rs 1.1 trillion GST collection per month, the total collection for August came in at Rs 864.49 billion. Even the Reserve Bank (RBI) would prefer for the Center to borrow and pay the states. Misleading people by covering up economic misdeeds of the government is immoral, unethical and unpatriotic. Whatever the inducements.