No better

An RBI survey on consumer confidence conducted in June 2017 in six cities — Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Mumbai and New Delhi — reveals that “people are as disappointed with their income growth, employment and economic well-being as they were before the Narendra Modi government came to power”. When the Modi era began, stock markets shot up as investors and industrialists pinned high hopes on the new regime, given Modi's pro-business image. Stocks markets are again close to an all-time high, but, as the surveys indicates, people in big cities do not seem to share the markets' optimism. Perceptions about the economic change in the three years of Modi raj are far from positive. The slogan of “Achhe Din” has become a kind of joke.  

The government has done some good things such as maintaining a low fiscal deficit, controlling inflation, cutting down petroleum subsidies, passing key legislation to eliminate delays in bankruptcy procedures and to regulate real estate, and of course the Goods and Services Act. But expected benefits are yet to percolate down. Rather in the short run spurts in prices of tomatoes and onions have added to public disenchantment. Traders have got tangled in the GST’s operational complexities. Too many, too high tax rates and multiple return filings. Still, manufacturing has not got anything other than the slogan of “Make in India”. The RBI's industrial survey points out that the percentage of manufacturers who think that employment is increasing in June 2017 is lower than what it was in March 2014.

If such is the level of disappointment in the metro cities where the delivery of services, income opportunities and livings standards are relatively better, the public mood in the countryside is not difficult to imagine. Farmer protests and suicides give an indication. Small hikes in minimum support prices may have helped in controlling food inflation, but this has been achieved at the farmer’s expense. If jobless growth weighs down youth in cities, rural youth do not have even skills for earning a living. Still government strategists know how to keep hope alive and divert public attention from core issues.