BUDGET : THE DISAPPOINTED MIDDLE CLASS : INDIA MISSES ANOTHER OPPORTUNITY OF RAPID ECONOMIC GROWTH

The salaried class is severely disappointed by the union budget presented today .

Arun Jaitley had said in his first budget speech that he would have liked to give more relief to salaried middle class if he had money. But now in his fourth budget he has proved that he is looking after only the voters ie  the mandatory poor , the rich  traders and the self employed lawyers , doctors etc. .Salaried class is grossly neglected as it has no godfather in the financial establishment.

It is well known that the Dearness  Allowance given to government employees  is based on the actual increase in prices and is paid much after the increase in prices . If it gets taxed at 30% or even 20% the actual purchasing power of the government salaried / pensioner  class decreases with time . This is true for the entire salaried class .One would have thought that he will see this logic and compensate them once at least now that he had the money . But he has not increased MAT a smoke screen  for lawyers traders etc  who get the security from scrutiny by paying a nominal tax , Income tax on salaried class keeps increasing like a taxi meter every time DA is paid .

Traders are the king now a days as the margins between the retail and whole sale prices have increased considerably . Earlier ten percent imported dal was given subsidy to keep dal price low in the country  . Now trader sells indigenous dal at imported price and keeps the margin as huge profit  . No wonder traders are buying cars !

He is lead by babus and  typical conservative economists who are making the country lose a great opportunity by not carefully  increasing the money supply and promoting the sunrise industries. PPP in infrastructure sector  is virtually dead but no one is worried ! Budget speech was directionless . He could have supported our pharma or sunrise sector of health care which has the potential of becoming another software . The rich in the world are greying and we can look after them at much lower cost. Some relief like first ten years tax holiday to the new international standard hospitals would be very useful.  Earnings from foreign patients could be made tax free and treated as deemed export .He failed to give any relief to IT sector likely to be hit by Trump ban . Its growth is not so rapid now . Research in artificial intelligence could be heavily  subsidized the way Rajiv Gandhi had lowered duty on computers .Demonetisation will hit creation creation of high salary jobs but he is not worried .

In general one gets an impression that the PM is worried about winning the next election , Amit Shah and Piyush Goel about traders and Jaitley about Davos type awards for presenting a conservative  budget which would have made  economists of 1910 very happy.

Arvind Subramaniam and Pungaria are quite happy to be under Status Quoist  Babus of finance  ministries otherwise they would know with slight risk of increased money supply and with control on traders by banning loans against food grains stocks for controlling inflation ,we could grow at least fifteen to twenty  percent more than the present rate by imaginative budgeting and finance policies .

At the end it is now getting clear that the Modi government is the government of the Babus lacking courage, conviction and knowledge to usher any big change .

As Shiv Sena alleged even if incorrectly , it is more pseudo secular and cannot attract brilliant and intelligent non conformist thinkers that congress was able to attract like Dr.Sarabhai  of ISRO, Homi Bhabha of Atomic Energy , Man Mohan Singh , Sam Pitroda , Montek etc . It needs to induct , trust and tolerate brilliant non conformists to give radical solutions for rapid growth of the country. We are heading for an industrial stagnation with this uncaring attitude about industrial growth.

But its saving grace is its so far corruption free tenure because of which PM Modi is trusted by the nation and could implement the Demonetisation so peacefully . It is as pseudo secular but  not rabidly anti hindu like Sonia Gandhi government so people are not happy but yet tolerant  .

Only those who understand and know that like a democratic USA we have the potential of growing much faster and match  China  are unhappy . But such people are so few in numbers . PM with his trust in staid babus will never know come to know the brilliant minds that can make it happen !

India will remain for ever a developing country because our lion like leaders also behave like कोल्हू के  बैल  bullocks when the yoke of government is put on them. .