Often economical and financial factors and reforms take time to show results, we have seen it through India's economical change initiated in 1991, which showed results mostly from 2002 to 2008, as constantly it was backed up with solid actions, though there was average economic growth of 7 or 7.5% till 2018, it was significantly due to the trade liberalisation policies, license raj dismantling, economic modernisation of 1991, dream budget of 1997 paving for the surge of IT development and massive urban and local infrastructure boost between 1999 to 2003 like the initiation of Golden Quadrilateral connecting Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai and Chennai and some consistent minor reforms this consistent growth was possible. In between, we had some good welfare schemes as well such as the expansion of the midday meal scheme in 1995, MGNREGA in 2005 etc. We are not going to go into the details of those in this article, we are just indicating the trend.
fig 1. India's GDP nominal growth rate YoY from 1991 to 2020
If we see from the graph we have had a consistent growth of around 6 to 8 % after the reforms set in at 1991, we can observe this trend from 1994 onwards, except for the impact of the 2008 great recession and the social and economic impact of corona in 2020. GDP represents the gross domestic product or also the national income, if we try to see it a little deeper level, GDP per capita is a good indicator of personal income of individuals though not precise, as there can be stagnation of wealth with the top 5% of the country, but that still is the key indicator for individual trend.
fig 2. GDP per capita (nominal) in USD from 1995 to 2020
Here, if we see in INR equivalent today, in 1995 the GDP per capita was Rs. 57540 and in 2020 Rs.145561.
To come to the core of the article, we are trying to investigate and relate the income growth per individual in the last 25 years. If we see there is a slowdown in economic growth after 2018 overall. And to understand when the income and revenue, since it is a market economy with a need for consumption the Government will spend more at times of slow down increasing the debt eventually. Also one needs to be clear that sovereign debt (government debt) is much different from personal debt say if the Government resists spending, such as they hold on paying subsidies and some allowances to control debt, the money the common man receives will reduce and hence he will not spend and buy more items, if he resists buying, another common man cannot sell his produce and eventually this vicious cycle goes on, in the end, the Government's revenues will decrease leading to only additional debt.
"In a market economy, one's spending is one's earning, this cycle goes on forever"
But what is not told the common public is that politicians independent of the political parties speak only about the rise in public debt and project it to individual finances, but never speak about the rise in income, just to manipulate the minds of the people. And sorry to say the media also want only the headlines, not much to say most of the social media handles are also controlled by the political parties one part or the other. It is not specific to any party, it purely depends on where they stand either in opposition or the ruling party. Though all of them do good activities it does not necessarily goes noticed, because of this attractive headline management.
Now we will take a look specifically at the state of Tamil Nadu. In 2011, the then opposition leader had told a claim that each child born in Tamil Nadu has a debt of Rs.15000 which is an attractive claim. But she also didn't mention that the personal income on average in Tamil Nadu was around Rs.90000.
https://www.businesstoday.in/opinion/perspective/story/tamil-nadu-budget-jayalalithaa-21610-2011-08-05
In 2021, the GDP per capita (nominal) of Tamil Nadu is Rs.2,54,500 and also one important thing to be noticed is that it was of the few states to register a positive growth in FY2020-21 given there was a recession in national growth, but for some reason, none of this goes noticed. Also in, FY2019-20 Tamil Nadu registered a growth of 8.03 % which was far more than the national average of 4.5%.
https://www.indiatoday.in/magazine/cover-story/story/20201207-tamil-nadu-one-step-ahead-1744614-2020-11-27
Now to sign it off on the buzzing story where almost every meme or social media news in circulation stating that on each family there is a debt of Rs.260000, which would translate to Rs.130000 per individual and when we relate it with the income per individual which is Rs.254200, but only the debt element of this was told and not the income element as that doesn't look any sensationalising.
As the author pointed out earlier, both the parties have done good work in their best possible capacity, during 2006-11 the expansion of SEZ's would have created new jobs and it would take time to reflect. The same goes for the other in FY2020-21, TN got an investment of Rs.100000 crore which was the 2nd highest in the country. There is a need for fiscal prudence, but neutrally we take both sides of the coin for analysis, we have tried to do the same here. And given that the state governments have a limited provision after 2017 to levy any sales tax, as it moved to the union GST. There are only commercial tax, fuel tax, liquor tax and land tax of the key revenues for the state. And the country was also on a gradual slowdown at the end of the decade. But there is always hope, good intentions bring good results.
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