RS 5 HIKE IN PEROL

India is rich. Its actual economy measured by PPP is around $3600--3800 billion; the fourth richest nation on earth, and which will become the third richest in just a few years. India has money and India has resources. The Indian government frequently spends billions on worthless foreign defense equipment...billions...billions...billions, when focus should be made on domestic production of defense equipment, even if its substandard.

This practice carries on by all parties because it makes certain politicians, netas, senior military officers and arms middlemen in India rich, and they deposit the money in off shore accounts (Indira Gandhi and her family have been implicated, as have others)..............now imagine this elite putting the same amount of effort into securing India's gas & oil needs, by investing the necessary funds and implementing the necessary policies to make India self sufficient in gas and oil.

BUT they won't .

What is 3,000 crore fuel subsidy by the government?.......0.05% of GDP ($638 million) of the official Indian economy of $1300 billion. According to Karan Thapar this subsidy bill will rise to 98,000 crore or $20 billion in this financial year which the Indian government allegedly can't sustain.

Unfortunately this subsidy bill is seen as a COST, a burden on the state, rather than seeing it as another indicator of the India's economic rise, and booming economy.............like the Ambani building his $2 billion penthouse; Shobha De bragging on about her latest foray into a luxury hotel in India and outside........or India spending $10 billion or is it going to be eventually $20 billion on a 4th generation jet fighters whose technology will soon be out of date, from a foreign country.

Seeing fuel subsidy for the masses as a COST and burden which the government can't pay for is a neo-liberal alien Western concept. $20 Billion or 98,000 crore estimated fuel subsidy bill this year is still 0.5% of the real Indian economy as measured by PPP of $3600--3800 billion.

The Indian Budget of $200 billion is woefully too small. Only 15% of the official GDP...........a neo-liberal paradise. The government thus must find serious strategies to increase the budget to GDP ratio from the current 15% to at least 25% of GDP, through an effective new tax regime. Then in such a prosperous confident India governments won't feel mean spirited about spending a paltry 1% on fuel subsidy.

Subsidies are the only way, in the complete absence of a SOCIAL SECURITY SYSTEM to give a little help to the masses.

Thus I support annual subsidized national health-care to the tune of 4-5% of GDP.

I support annual subsidized national education for all up to the age of 16, spending 6% of GDP on education.

I support annual subsidized national development and infrastructure investment to the tune of 10% of GDP.

I support annual subsidized agricultural policies to the tune of 3% of GDP.

I support annual subsidized fuel to the tune of 1% of GDP, at least.

These can only be achieved by governments who accept that in power and in government they have a moral duty to uplift the masses beyond paying lip service to their needs, whilst privately pursuing neo-liberal banana republic policies which slowly steals even the meager basics of the masses, such as food and fuel.