After making unmindful moves, the RSS/BJP Government really made the mess of Indian economy. The draconian note-bandi yielded no positive gains for the economy. Rather, it put the Indian economy in the crisis and it made many economic sectors gasp for air. Then came the hasty GST regime with a broad slogan of one nation, one market, and one tax. It also saw many hiccups in the policy changes and in the span of 4 months, the policy went unrecognisable changes that the original policy is now wounded and cracked in many places. So, the BJP/RSS Government is now using band-aids on various wounds, though it talks of overall surgery on Indian economy.

When the note-bandi failed, no one knows why it was exactly brought into play, the RSS/BJP Government tried to hide behind “digitisation” of Indian economy. It wanted to make India cashless economy. This is in itself an impossible target as now it is clear most of the people in India do not have access to the internet and that most of the transactions are done in cash. Then the government claimed that they have identified the “suspicious” transactions and now the intelligent agencies are zeroing on those individuals and parties. By other routes, it would have easy for the government to track the miscreants, but the government is citing such stupid reasons for the botched policy.

The GST regime has failed to create confidence for many reasons. First of all, it was a complex tax regime and it took government 40 tweakings to make it look easier for the businesses. That was not enough, the Government overhauled the entire tax regime and now one of the band-aid economic policy is to establish “National Anti-Profiteering Agency”-let us call it NAPA. The Government is establishing this agency for stopping the companies who would otherwise profit due to pricing. It is needless to say that the pricing is a different ball game than the taxing. But, the RSS/BJP Government would also like to check the pricing and those found guilty will have to pay to “Consumer Welfare Fund”. NAPA is, therefore, a mechanism to stop the businesses from gaining from the new tax regime. It is impossible to know the intention of the RSS/BJP Government.

Now on the third point, the RSS/BJP is really behaving like it completely plunged the economy into bottomless hole. Jaitley talked about changing the fiscal regime. The fiscal responsibility act limits the power of the government to change the limits of the fiscal deficit, but now Jaitley spelt out that it will have to change. The fiscal prudence is important to bar politicians from excessively playing games with the economy. Now that Jaitley wants to play with the fiscal responsibility act, it underscores very important signal from the government that Indian economy is not doing well at all.

Look at Indian economy from any angle, it looks like it is heading down and towards something bad. The government aid of 2 lakh crore rupees extended to the Indian banks through the RBI should raise questions as the banks are marking the defaulters, the big industrialists whose names are taken with pride are marked. Strangely, from the point of view of the law, the companies are legal persons and hence the responsibility cannot be fixed on the individuals. It is time to change the band-aid approach if Indian economy really is to develop with the common man in sight.

Author – Mangesh Dahiwale

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