Either way it seems pointless.

 "The central government on Monday announced a Rs 73,000 crore (Rs 730 billion) demand push to the economy ahead of the festive season", but "the measures to boost consumer spending as well as capital expenditure are modest and designed to stimulate demand in a fiscally prudent manner", wrote Asit Ranjan Mishra. "The LTC (leave travel concession) cash voucher scheme allows government employees who haven't availed it, to get fare as cash vouchers to be spent by March. However, they have to spend three times the ticket fare on items that attract 12% GST and above. For this only digital transactions are allowed and GST invoice needs to be produced," explained Shuchi Bansal. It means that, "If your LTA is Rs 1 lakh (Rs 100,000) for the current financial year, you either produce tickets to claim it as a tax-free allowance or pay Rs 30,000 tax on it." Now you can avoid paying that tax without traveling "provided you spend Rs 3 lakhs to purchase a car, laptop, TV set, fridge, smartphones or a combination of these items which attract over 12% GST. Among services, term insurance premium, and even Ulips, would qualify given that they face 18% levy." Is this a cash handout to government employees, or is there a sting in the tail? In the above example, if a person takes Rs 1 lakh in cash she will pay Rs 30,000 as income tax. However, if she spends Rs 3 lakhs, she will be paid Rs 1 lakh tax-free. But, she will have to pay a minimum of 12% GST on Rs 3 lakhs, which will be Rs 36,000. The government gains Rs 6,000. Except for a car, people have a buy a lot of items to avail of this 'gift'. "Perhaps the real point to note is the nearly negligible fiscal impact of Sitharaman's goody bag. Her latest stimulus package, as she made clear, will not alter the Center's current borrowing target of Rs 12 trillion for this fiscal year, already up from Rs 7.8 trillion planned back in February," wrote an editorial in the Mint. "India Inc was unimpressed with finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman's additional budget allocation of Rs 25,000 crore (Rs 250 billion) towards government-driven capital expenditure and an additional Rs 12,000 crore (Rs 120 billion) in loans to states." Naturally, "Market investors were not very enthused by the government's package meant to lift consumer demand and infrastructure spending." These measures "are unlikely to provide any meaningful, durable push to economic activity. Yet they signal an acknowledgement on the part of the government of the need for measures to boost demand -- and raise expectations that more measures are in the offing," wrote an editorial in The Indian Express. If the government is waiting to time a stimulus just before next year's state elections it may not work. It takes time to increase productivity so a sudden injection of funds into the economy may raise inflation by raising demand. Or maybe it is plain broke.