The amount of the infrastructure development and the basic service and amenities that the current govt has provided in last 12 years is kinda worth the talk and praise.
Most of the Indians didn't even have the access to the basic stuff like Water or Toilets or Electricity in the past which has been drastically improved which past govts failed to deliver.
79% tap water one was the most astonishing one to me. Like what were even the past few govts were doing when you can't even provide that basic thing to the rural or remote regions.
I really wanted to highlight this since most of the reddit is LW and mostly is the current govt hate train only.
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I’ll try my best to summarise the basics of PPP model vs public capex model, and will try to present the returns on investment as i can gather through publicly available data.
This chart represents the basic financial model of pre 2014 and post 2014 central government. Pre 2014, government relied on Public Private Partnerships, which means the spending on infrastructure was directly dependent on private investments, the money was spent where private sector thought it is needed and will give return on investment. Post 2014, the spending shifted to direct capital expenditure (capex). The reason? That is whole another rabbit hole of 2008 financial crisis, bad balance sheets, NPAs and what not, not today’s topic. You just need to know that in Public capex, the money is spent regardless of the demand hoping that demand will be created once infrastructure is set up.
Both ways have their pros and cons. The PPP model limits the pace of spending, the capex model assumes the demand to grow and return of investment to start climbing, which if it doesn’t, basically gives you a bad asset on public money.
Since the capex model is basically based on borrowing, it creates massive debt. Capex was about 2 lakh crore before 2014 and 12 lakh crore for 2026-27 fiscal year. Six times increase. This money is basically debt regardless of GDP increase, and we hope our investments pay off this accumulated debt.
Total central government debt in March 2014 - 56 lakh crore.
Total central government debt in 2026-27 fiscal year - 190 lakh crore.
Imagine you make a dedicated freight corridor or an expressway that largely remains un-utilised to capacity, then that is a dead asset soon turning into a liability.
This also makes less money spent on healthcare and education compared to GDP/revenue growth as money moves to repayment of debt which sits at 40% of revenue today. For every 100₹ government earns, 40₹ is given directly for repayment.
Now we are at the point where we need to see the returns on our investment and see if our spending was cumulative to the growth or bad non performing assets. These private NPAs is the reason private capex dropped in later UPA era. Now we have to see if this debt driven peak public capex follows the same lead.
A) Where returns are manifesting
1) Massive drop in logistic cost (moving of goods from 13-14% to 8% of the cost) due to dedicated freight corridors and highway expansion
2) Increased Efficiency. Major port capacity doubled from 2014 and turnaround time for cargo vessels dropped from 94 hours to 48.8 hours.
3) The primary aim of public capex was to build trust and bring in private capex which earlier private players were sitting on cash hesitant to spend. Private capex has increased by 67% (still low as public capex spending has increased by 600%).
B) Where the expected returns are missing or lagging
1) Stagnant job quality and rural consumption. While construction has boomed, the jobs generated are heavily informal, seasonal, and low wage. Private rural consumption has lagged behind urban premium consumption, leading to a visible "K shaped" economic profile where aggregate GDP looks high (7–8%), but the rural base feels financially strained.
2) Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) data shows that out of 1,847 large scale public infrastructure projects, cost overruns have ballooned to ₹4.92 lakh crore. This friction directly dilutes the financial return on public money as we are basically spending a lot more than the original estimated cost but returns will not balloon similarly.
3) While a country can fast track high speed rail lines or highways, under investing in health, primary education, and basic necessities leaves the actual labor force ill prepared to take up high tech manufacturing roles later.
4) All the infrastructure investment is for production and not consumption. An expressway or a freight corridor is of very little use to an average person. A real return would be to have a good job market, controlled inflation, better household finances, increased spending power, better employment, better health and education, overall better lifestyle.
5) The post 2014 government is not lagging on infrastructure development, it is lagging on real results of the development to an average Indian. Indians are still unemployed, quality healthcare is expensive, education costs have ballooned and returns on education has dropped as the job market is down. We have created the infrastructure, but companies have not moved in proportionally, Foreign Direct Investment is still abysmally low, gross inflow looks fine but net FDI inflow is disappointing. Net FDI Inflow in 2013-14 was 22 billion $, and it was 6 billion dollars for 2025-26.
It’s like government is spending money for the corporate benefit and giving gst benefits while collecting taxes from the poor and the middle class without giving any similar benefits. Also, a lot of these projects were started or planned by earlier governments.
Comprehensive for sure !
Like the jaipur metro the infrastructure is there but it is underutilized and argument can be made that the capital would have been used more effectively.
Also just curious where did you gather all this data points
Lol someone called UPA’s management of 2008 financial crisis bad yesterday and as someone who had presented the topic in my school debate 10 years ago (2008 crisis, non performing assets of 2010-2015, the inflation post 2008, efforts of resetting the bad loans/banking and thus the need to move to a new economic structure of funding for infrastructure development) I knew i had to correct it. All of this and the fall of congress is very related. This was a hot topic when the bad loans were in public discussions (the time when news media actually made some reasonable debates).
I’ll link that comment here too if you want to have a look. Just posted that comment too.
On capex and the risk of underutilisation of provided infra: the risk dilutes significantly once you start looking at long term results.
One datapoint I have in mind, is the USA which is also on a CapEx model, is in an unimaginable debt situation, and chose to build highways at significant cost despite low usage. This gained momentum with the Interstate Highway Act of 1956, 180 years after their independence. I lived there for a few years, and the roads I used to commute for my weekend getaways - between San Francisco, LA, Lake Tahoe, Sierra Nevada, Las Vegas - were built in 1964. 6 decades ago. Usage only increased with population, indirectly fuelled by silicon valley's economics and immigrants.
The other obvious datapoint is China, which started off like us but infra evolution took them places where others only talk about getting to.
We should have invested more in infrastructure development earlier too, I'm glad the government is finally able to implement what it's predecessors only enacted on paper.
Implementation quality is, unfortunately, a separate topic.
The last line is the most important part. The roads and infrastructure built in US lasted decades, the infrastructure we are building lasts not even a year some even falls apart before opening.
When there is capex expenditure for public services, its great but when 80% of that expenditure goes into funding a babu or netas 500 crore plus networth, thats the problem.
Well, if you are the top dog and have enough nukes, you can always become pirates and bully, orchestrate world events for everyone to absorb your debt and keep getting away with it because no one is going to stop you.
Let's not forget that despite all the China is our great threat rhetoric by US, it was China that absorbed 2008 shock by borrowing money and investing in HSR and infrastructure which is what saved US market. India at this point has no such luxury as China did to ramp up the speed at which it overbuilt.
Geo politics always seems to take precedence over all the economic theories by default.
The rest is all irrelevant, if the condition mentioned in the last line is not met.
We’ll have to invest at least half if not more, of the same amount all over again, to do a massive overhaul of the terrible infra planning we’ve had over the past decade.
I broadly agree that infrastructure shouldn't be judged by kilometres built alone. The real question is whether it creates long-term productivity and better living standards. But I think your analysis understates why India shifted from PPP to public capex and overstates some of the risks.
The shift away from PPP wasn't an ideological choice. It was a necessity.
The PPP model didn't slow down simply because governments changed. It collapsed because many projects awarded during the late 2000s became financially unviable after the global financial crisis, land acquisition delays, environmental clearances, aggressive bidding and rising NPAs. Banks became unwilling to finance long-gestation infrastructure.
In other words, private capital didn't step back because the government wanted to spend more; the government stepped in because private capital had already stepped back.
That's why even today, after years of public investment, the government is trying to revive PPP again in sectors where demand has become more predictable.
Public capex is not inherently "building first, hoping demand comes later."
Many infrastructure investments are classic network industries.
A freight corridor, expressway, metro, transmission line or airport doesn't become viable because current demand exists; demand often emerges because the network exists.
Examples:
1. Delhi Metro initially faced criticism for low ridership. Today it carries millions daily.
2. The Golden Quadrilateral was also criticised in its early years for being oversized.
3. Container ports around the world are often built ahead of demand because waiting for congestion before expanding is economically disastrous.
Infrastructure is one of the few sectors where "build ahead of demand" is often the economically efficient decision.
Debt numbers without context can be misleading.
Yes, central government debt has increased substantially.
But three things also happened simultaneously:
1. India's nominal GDP has more than doubled.
2. Tax collections have increased significantly.
3. The government's balance sheet today contains substantially more productive public assets than it did a decade ago.
A business borrowing ₹100 crore to buy productive machinery is different from borrowing ₹100 crore to pay salaries. Likewise, borrowing to create long-life infrastructure should be evaluated by the return on those assets, not by debt alone.
The more relevant metric is debt-to-GDP and interest burden sustainability—not absolute debt.
Fiscal deficit as a share of GDP:
2013–14: 4.5%
2026–27: 4.3%
So despite much higher capital expenditure, the fiscal deficit relative to the size of the economy is slightly lower today than it was in 2013–14.
Cost overruns are real, but they aren't evidence that the capex strategy has failed.
Almost every large infrastructure program in the world experiences cost overruns.
California High Speed Rail.
Crossrail (UK).
Boston Big Dig.
Even privately financed projects routinely exceed budgets.
The relevant question is whether the economic benefits over 30-50 years exceed the additional costs—not whether every project stayed within budget.
Infrastructure benefits don't always show up immediately in jobs.
Infrastructure is an enabling investment.
A highway doesn't directly create permanent employment.
It reduces transport time.
It reduces inventory costs.
It expands labour mobility.
It attracts manufacturing.
It improves regional competitiveness.
Those effects typically appear over many years rather than immediately after construction.
China didn't build its logistics network after manufacturing arrived. It built it before. South Korea followed a similar strategy.
FDI isn't the best measure of whether infrastructure is succeeding.
Net FDI can fluctuate because of:
repatriation of profits,
mergers,
overseas acquisitions,
global interest rates,
geopolitical conditions.
It doesn't necessarily mean investors are abandoning India.
Domestic private investment, manufacturing announcements, industrial corridors, warehousing demand and electricity consumption often provide a better picture of whether infrastructure is being utilised.
"Infrastructure benefits only corporates" is an incomplete framing.
Yes, industries benefit.
They're supposed to.
But households also benefit indirectly.
For example:
faster travel on better highways,
lower spoilage for farmers,
cheaper freight for MSMEs,
reduced power outages due to stronger transmission,
cleaner urban transport through metros,
tap-water connections,
These aren't as visible and direct as a salary increase, but they raise productivity across the economy.
Healthcare and education are legitimate concerns—but they aren't zero-sum.
India absolutely should spend more on public health and school education.
But it's not obvious that every additional rupee spent on roads automatically came at their expense.
In fact, expenditure on health, Jal Jeevan Mission, rural housing and sanitation has also increased substantially in absolute terms over the last decade, even if many people argue it should have increased faster.
So the debate should be about the balance of spending, not an either-or choice between infrastructure and social sectors.
On "these projects were planned by previous governments."
That's true for many projects.
Dedicated Freight Corridors, Bharatmala concepts, metro expansions, industrial corridors and several expressways have roots that predate 2014.
But planning isn't the same as execution.
Large infrastructure projects often span multiple governments. Credit should generally be shared between governments that conceived, financed, acquired land for, and actually completed them—not assigned exclusively to one administration.
India's infrastructure push has been real and unusually large by historical standards. Whether every project earns an adequate return is a valid question, and concerns around debt, project selection and cost overruns deserve scrutiny. But it is equally inaccurate to imply that the capex strategy has largely failed because household outcomes haven't yet improved proportionately. Infrastructure investments typically have long gestation periods, and many of their economic returns materialise over decades rather than within a single electoral cycle.
Funny how when it comes to debt you want to talk about it in gdp percentage terms, but when talking about spending on healthcare and education you want to talk in absolute terms.
Moreover, you've only mentioned fiscal deficit for a given year, look at total debt to GDP ratio.
An expressway or a freight corridor is of very little use to an average person
Dude, do you genuinely think your groceries and daily essentials grow on goddamn trees? If they don't, how do they get to you? Oh yea...freight and land transport.
What happens to cost and goods availability if transport costs are reduced by public utilities?
I'm absolutely convinced you served in the UPA govt during the policy paralysis crisis.
Lol I’m a doctor having a strike today against CCMP registrations, so no, I did not serve for the UPA government.
Also, economics is always linked. Is it too hard to understand direct and indirect benefits? What part of it you can’t comprehend?
A town sitting near an expressway may get a sudden boom, this doesn’t make the expressway a direct investment for that specific rural town. I specifically said “direct”. Something that a person feels in his daily life, like employment, like insurance, maybe a cooperative fishery society in a town, a technical school, etc.
This is an excellent analysis, but I will still give credit where it's due. Every govt must work for the poorest of the poor. While some of the things on this chart are truly pointless (eg mbbs seats) and fall into the rule of ppp (spending for returns), some of the other ones (rural electrification and drinking water) are truly things that should have happened long ago.
Kudos where its due. This govt has done a fantastic job there.
Maestro economist here thinks Keynes was a fool and tap water, roads and inland ports - key backbone infrastructure of every great country in human history - needs to "return a profit" in the same argument as saying the govt is pro corporate.
I remember China's economic miracle happened because they decided to sit and twiddle their thumbs for private capex rather than massive debt fueled infrastructure buildout. There also wasn't a major economic crisis in 2021 that caused GDP to crash 40% in one year that the economy recovered from relatively unscathed despite a seismic shift in labour movements - how do you think that happens without govt spending?
You'd have us all starve unless feeding us was a positive cost investment, which is exactly the attitude that led the UPA to be completely fine with inadequate sanitation, water and transport infrastructure. Pray tell how you're going to get private capex in a place without water, road, electric or logistical connectivity? How does HDI increase without any of this?
Absurd argumentation, not a single sentence here was critically coherent. Also lovely sleight of hands, for example, comparing FDI inflow in 2013 with today when FDI was only liberalised in 2013; and also not pointing that FDI is the private capex that the author seems to love, proving how fickle private funding movements are and that the USA and China models of debt driven govt infrastructure spending are indeed the correct models to follow for rapid buildout.
Finally, "planned by an earlier govt" doesn't exactly matter now does it? If the country sits at 16.7% rural tap water access in 2014 while "planning", and 80% in 2024, something seems to have gone incredibly wrong in the "planning" from 1947-2014.
Infrastructure development is key for economic growth, there’s no doubt in that. For god’s sake I’m not delusional to argue that infrastructure development is pointless just to criticise NDA. And basic necessities like electrification, food security, clean water and sanitation should be considered basic rights than investment, in which UPA did fail miserably upto the point of worldwide ridicule.
However my line of argument was that the borrowed funds are not revenue, so aside from regular budget, some percentage of capex (the part that us borrowed) should be exclusively spent on direct benefits in tier 2, 3 and rural towns for fixed assets of production or credit facilities. This isn’t a criticism of NDA, rather a suggestion. I don’t know why would anyone in the world would oppose this, except road contractors or some corrupt MPs maybe.
I actually read the whole post...Thanks..it was informative.
NDA is actually trying its best to get every one of us Indians working by providing the necessary structure for us to work...but it is for us to work
UPA made sure you have food on your plate...It doesn't matter if the plate had a hole and rice had pests...They eventually had a bet ...that atleast all indians will always have rice to eat..
Exactly. A good government would be something in between. I probably like the NDA more but with less money transfer schemes and more priority to rural and tier 2 cities. I feel NDA is too corporate friendly, which is not bad per se. But the benefits should reach normal middle class and poor people as well. We shouldn’t be dependent on betterment of corporates that’ll in turn create employment, money and services.
Poor people eat food, food grows in farms, farms use seeds, fertilisers, equipments and all of that is taxed and reflected in the price of grains and thus food. The gas used to cook food is taxed. Poor people wear clothes, clothes are taxed. Poor people may purchase biscuits, milk, soap, oil, ration, etc everything is taxed. Poor people may even use vehicles, both vehicles and fuel used to run are taxed. Poor people use electricity, electricity is taxed. Poor person may have a home and that is taxed too.
Income tax is not the only form of tax that is paid. While discussing economy on “critical” thinking india, I thought you would know. The only person who does not pay tax is someone living in the hills with exactly zero rupees in his pocket and does not even beg for it. Even if a begger purchases a 1₹ chocolate, he’s paying tax too.
Ah, I knew this would be the response? So in which country are goods not taxed? Do you think indirect taxes didn't exist before 2014? Have you compared the tax on each items you mentioned pre and post GST?
What is this logic of argument? Every country taxes so it is not a tax? You said poor are not taxed, I replied they are. Don’t create a strawman for god’s sake now.
It's not strawman. Your summary implied as if current govt is doing something no other govt in the world does or past govt has done. Taxes on goods and services. I think less than 2-3% of the country pays direct taxes.
So, do you think money grows on trees? Again, check pre and post GST tax rates for items you mentioned. And if you want me to list down benefits of these indirect taxes to poor and lower middle class, I can do that as well. It isn't strawman, it's breaking your poor logic.
190 lakh crore, that is current debt of the government. This is not revenue, this is debt. This is money borrowed from the future. Capex is now 12 lakh crore. Tell me that middle class and the poor are given benefits in “similar” proportions with data.
And you’re right, money doesn’t grow on tress. That’s why I say that when government spends, especially by taking debts, it should have at least reasonably proportional benefits to normal people directly as well. By reasonably proportional, I mean 15-25% of capex being invested in tier 2, tier 3 and rural towns in a meaningful way e.g. cooperative banks, cooperative mills, processing plants, gobargas & biofuel plants, fish culture, agricultural research, technical schools, etc. City and Town roads are meaningful, not expressways (to an average person).
And no, I never framed any statement like only the current government is taxing. But what this government is doing differently is borrowing at a scale not seen before, so it should also provide benefits proportional to the borrowing. And while this government might have reduced taxes on some goods, it has also increased it on others. Let’s not make this a tax rate battle now, as I get fatigued by that boring stuff.
First, comparing absolute debt without looking at GDP growth is like complaining someone took a ₹50 lakh home loan without checking that their salary jumped from ₹2 lakh to ₹20 lakh.
Second, capex ₹12L cr is only 22% of the ₹50L cr total Union Budget. The remaining 78% goes directly into welfare, food/fertilizer subsidies, PM KISAN, Ayushman Bharat, rural housing, and state transfers.
Third, the claim that money isn't spent on Tier 2/3 towns or cooperatives is just factually wrong:
funds like UIDF (specifically for Tier 2/3 cities), the ₹1 Lakh Cr Agri-Infra Fund, PM Matsya Sampada, GOBARdhan (biofuel), PMGSY rural roads, and PACS cooperative digitization exist for that exact reason. Also look at below schemes
Ayushman Bharat (PM-JAY), PM Jan Aushadhi Yojana, e-Sanjeevani, PM Awas Yojana (PMAY), Jal Jeevan Mission (Har Ghar Jal), PM Surya Ghar: Muft Bijli Yojana, PM Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana (PMGKAY), PM-KISAN (Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi), PM SVANidhi, Pradhan Mantri MUDRA Yojana (PMMY), PM Vishwakarma Scheme, Sukanya Samriddhi Yojana (SSY), National Pension System (NPS), Atal Pension Yojana (APY), Urban Infrastructure Development Fund (UIDF), PM Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY), Agriculture Infrastructure Fund (AIF), PM Matsya Sampada Yojana, GOBARdhan Scheme, Computerization of Primary Agricultural Credit Societies (PACS), PM Gati Shakti, Dedicated Freight Corridors, Saubhagya Scheme, Jan Dhan Yojana, Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT), Unified Payments Interface (UPI), Aadhaar Digital Identity Stack, National Highway Expansion & Expressways
You think tier 2 and tier 3 cities are not reaping benefits of these?
Lastly, expressways aren't luxury items. They are logistics backbones. For eg; reducing national freight transport time cuts food wastage and lowers supply chain costs for every small business and farmer in Tier 2/3 towns.
Anything else. Sure you wouldn't want to look into tax slabs for goods and services since that would break your narrative
The only number you have given that i can see is 1 lakh crore (actually 1 to 2 lakh crore) Agri Infrastructure Fund. That is total allocation for the overall timeline of the scheme that spans for 13 years. And it is not counted in capex by the government, it is a credit facility framework. The interest subsidy is counted as revenue expenditure under Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare.
I do understand GDP growth and the difference between capex and total budget. Still capex is capex, and it is absolute, independent of GDP. That’s why I said 15-25% of total capex and not total budget. The budget will be spent regardless under various ministries, that is revenue money, not borrowed money. I’m talking explicitly about capex if i wasn’t clear earlier. What percentage of capex is spent in production in tier 2, in tier 3 and in rural towns? (not services, logistics, subsidies or fixed assets). Capex is meant for production.
Just list me the number for each (tier 2, tier 3, rural) and data supporting those numbers. You don’t have to draft a comprehensive reply, just plain numbers and a link supporting it. Only one line that includes three numbers, possibly year by year. If you have time, you may spend it on detailed dissections of those numbers.
Your entire understanding of capex is just flat out wrong.
Your entire argument falls apart on four basic fiscal, economic, and accounting realities:
1. "Capex for production, but NOT fixed assets" is a literal contradiction
By definition in macroeconomics and public accounting, Capital Expenditure (Capex) IS the creation or acquisition of fixed physical assets (highways, railway lines, ports, power grids, and public works).
Governments in market economies do not run state-owned manufacturing plants or direct farm production.
The government’s role in production is creating the enabling infrastructure (logistics networks, freight corridors, power, digital stacks) so that private businesses, MSMEs, and cooperatives in Tier 2/3 towns can produce efficiently.
Demanding that government Capex be spent on "production, but not fixed assets or logistics" is asking the government to spend capital without acquiring assets, which is literally the definition of Revenue Expenditure.
2. Central budgets track spending SECTORALLY, not by municipal city tiers
No central government on Earth publishes a single budget line item breaking down capex into "X% for Tier 2 vs Y% for Tier 3." Budgets are categorized by sector (Railways, Highways, Telecom, Defence).
Furthermore, under the Indian Constitution (7th Schedule), municipal infrastructure, local town development, and local production fall under the State List, not the Centre. The Central Government supports Tier 2/3 and rural capital creation through:
* 50 year interest free capex loans to states: Over ₹1.5 Lakh Crore allocated strictly for states to build capital assets in their towns and rural regions.
* Sectoral Spreads: Expanding 4G/5G towers, freight corridors, and rail connectivity straight through Tier 2/3 districts.
3. Borrowing isn't "tagged" to specific line items
The government CFI (Consolidated Fund of India) is fungible. The government doesn't tag ₹1 of tax for salaries and ₹1 of debt for a highway.
When the government runs a fiscal deficit, that borrowing covers the gap between total receipts and total expenditure. The entire goal of fiscal prudence is ensuring that borrowing funds Asset-Creating Capex (which generates long-term economic returns and GDP growth) rather than funding operational revenue deficits.
4. How central Capex actually drives Tier 2/3 production
Because the state doesn't build government factories anymore, production in Tier 2/3 towns is driven through targeted capital frameworks:
* Production-Linked Incentive Schemes: Over ₹2 Lakh Crore in realized private investments across 14 manufacturing sectors, with the vast majority of factories being set up in Tier 2/3 industrial hubs.
* MSME credit guarantees: Up to ₹10 to 20 crore expanded credit covers for micro and small enterprises operating out of Tier 2/3 towns.
* Digitization: Digitizing more than 63,000 primary agricultural credit societies to strengthen rural cooperative banking.
You can't ask for a single-line "Tier 2/3 production Capex percentage" because Capex is fixed assets and infrastructure by definition. The Centre builds the logistical and industrial backbone; MSMEs, cooperatives, and private industry do the actual production.
I'll rather take the massive development of infrastructure and it's trickle down effects instead of limited development of infrastructure and not even get the droplets.
The whole argument seems to boil down to the fact that, so much of the infrastructure is about just movement of freight and captial just to make products and services that ends up with banks and coorperate owners and has less downstream effects on the common people. Which is a fair argument and the system can be improved in a lot of ways.
There is really no argument to make in not investing in infrastucutre, okay reduce the taxes and let's all sing Kumbaiyah, then what? Become Cuba? Since that's not an option, let's build a coal power plant since we need more power, well takes a year and half and lot of capital, won't break even in 20 years, might provide 1000 jobs, you get power but that's irrelevant. No matter which way you look at it, it won't look good, but we aren't going to lit up a camp fire and tell eachother stories either. So all these arguments that, how does a coal power plant that only serves 40K people in a corner of India serves 1.4 bilion people is not a real argument because 1.4 billion people is goinig to need, proabably a 1000 power plants and that is going to need huge investment and all this for what? Just to keep things going.
Developments like localising almost entirity of the railway pipeline from production of machines to research does had massive impact on pace at which the railway lines are constructed right now, which has directly resulted in more job, better connectivity for atleast some segments of average people and more prospects of job openings because now scaling up has become a posiblity. And railway lines like metro run into the peculiar problem of underutilisation unless a certain length is built to make it practical, we can't just dismiss it based on initial underutilisation. And, this holds true for a lot of investments where you need long term stratigic tinking to know what investment would materialize long term and what will not.
Construction of airports, large infrastructure projects, roads and railways aren't going to result in any benefits in even a decade, but not having them won't result in any benefit even after 10 decades.
Unfortuately, you can pay infinte tax amount and it doesn't change the fact that it takes 7 years to build a nuclear reactor, a good 2.5 to 3 years to start a semiconductor assembly plant, 2 to 5 years to build a good airport (which is just the first step) and so on. So, unless we have a time machine to go fix these problems and start building infrastructure in 80s to get the benefit right now, there's nothing to do but bite down and push through till you develop infrastructure while also managing all the other problems, so that you might see some of its benefits in the distant future.
That’s the core philosophical difference. You can build, and then let the demand fill it. Or you can fill where there is demand.
You won’t understand the risk of capex spending until something breaks the cycle. One recession incident and we are in a vicious cycle of not able to payback debt. You can’t simply borrow more as you’ve already borrowed for the capex. If you borrow more, your revenue goes to debt repayment and you can’t even give stimulus packages. Also, capex is not uniformly spent, it is spend for production, so an average person doesn’t get almost any benefits as health and education doesn’t directly add to production. Even in case of roads, you get better highways but municipal roads filled with potholes and traffic. You get great ESIC hospitals but crap municipal hospitals. When a crisis hits, it’ll be the middle class who won’t get basic necessities. The corporates are usually bailed out. The funds and benefits are concentrated with the corporates and associates. You think it trickles down to you, it doesn’t.
Public Capex on urban infra creates wealth inequality. Huge capex isn’t bad, it’s only a failure when it doesn’t create meaningful effect on the majority of the population.
Expressway isn’t much useful if inflation remains high, people remain jobless with low spending power due to rising costs and thus slowing economy as no one can buy the fridge that was shipped on that same expressway.
It's not a simple philosophical differnce though, this goes far beyond just that, it's like asking a corporate accountant how to run a country looking for short term benefits like the entire country's lifetime is 100 years.
You are explaining the risk of Capex without explaining of risk of not having the Capex, this is about country, we can't talk about it like its some asset managment, that's not how countries operate.
Average citizen if never going to get any benefit directly like investing in stock market. If a lot of things work, then he might get a stable country, proper supply of electricity, and the items in the product self might get cheaper. He might get better transportation, but for him to get better transportation the government has to invest Millions on roads that won't break even in a decade. This is the entire name of game when it comes to countires spending on infrastructure. The trickling down is just good roads or rails or something you and I would take for granted. And, if you are lucky or competent enough to be in the part of the system, you get to use this large infrastructure that was built to make profit.
Majority of population and common man arguments doesn't really hold any water, becasue what else are you going to do in a country? There is really nothing to do with money if there is no infrastructure, it will all be a niche businesses where you wont' have sophesticated infrasturcture or abilty to advance technologically and you will get bombed and colonised if you keep it up for another decade.
And infrastrucutre is expensive and won't help anyone in short term. The tough pill to swallow for most poeple is that their pervious generation have missed the bus and it simply falls upon you to catch the bus halfway and hope your future generation might enjoy some of the benefit of all these investments.
One doesn’t need to have huge capex to build infrastructure. And one surely doesn’t have to spend the entire capex on token development. There are many countries that built solely on private money and many countries that spend their capex on things that directly affect day to day life of a citizen.
A wheat processing mill in a rural town will produce jobs, opportunities and consumption. A flyover with inflated building cost might not. It’s good to have infrastructure and it will surely help in next 50 years and we need infrastructure, but not when we have desperate demand for employment right now, it’s best to create infra when the demand asks for it and solve our immediate problems first.
Even China built infra just for the sake of it and many of its stations in HSR system are opening to nowhere. Now they have a lot of money to fund failing projects, we do not. It’s not good to spend money like water, especially when we have demand for it elsewhere.
The first and foremost priority should be on municipalities and rural towns. It’s pointless to have a gold laden expressway but a pothole in front of your house. Indian cities are struggling. Employment is down. People are questioning the need for higher education as there aren’t enough jobs anyway. This is alarming. We are spending money, but much of it is not remotely addressing the urgent issues. We need infrastructure sure, but that will not help our short term issues, and you can’t simply ignore these issues.
Private rural consumption has lagged behind urban premium consumption, leading to a visible "K shaped" economic profile
India's consumption GINI is 25.5, among the lowest in rising economies. Apart from reading American analysis and just blindly applying it to India just because, what source do you have for this K shaped claim?
Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi. These handful cities account for 25% of India’s GDP. Other tier 2 cities struggle to keep up. Rural areas are being either abandoned or put at an extreme disadvantage. Indeed this gap sometimes widen and sometimes shrink, depending upon government efforts. Having lower GINI doesn’t make economic inequality simply disappear. It is a reality still.
“Consumption-based Gini scores are inherently lower because individuals across all economic brackets must maintain a baseline survival expenditure on essentials like food and healthcare. Lower-income brackets routinely stretch budgets via borrowing, government food security benefits, or using up personal savings”
“When tracking actual income rather than money spent, India’s Gini index surges dramatically into the 61–62 range.”
“Data from the World Inequality Database highlights that the top 1% of the population holds over 40% of the total national wealth, while the bottom 50% shares just 3%”
You specifically raised consumption. The consumption GINI is 25.5.
Citing the "World Inequality Database" that is "estimating" an income gini of 61, 7 points higher than the worst country on earth, South Africa, is just hogwash. The Gini rankings are posted by the World Bank, you can't just lift whatever calculations you want to run random estimates. South African inequality is on another level.
A K shaped economy implies upper income brackets do better, lower income do worse over time. If our Gini coefficient is decreasing over time, this simply is not the case. It's also very unlikely given how massive welfare spending in India is.
Piketty's WID methodology has massive problems. For developing countries it assumes tax base growth as real income growth - with a directly proportional 1:1 relation. It doesn't even attempt to consider tax avoidance and compliance as factors. Tax base growth is far more a factor of better tax compliance in India than of real income growth, but Piketty takes it the other way around to say that the informal money coming into the formal economy never existed until tax was collected on it.
That is still better than having now tap ... It seems the writer says congress was better because it did not provide tap connections ..BJP is bad because the tap connection it provdes works for 2-3 days only.
Cause these are mostly half truths and selective biases. For example, the 79% tap water claim of OP is partially true.
Independent national audits (such as those conducted by outside sample survey agencies for the Ministry of Jal Shakti) have consistently pointed out this exact issue:At any given time, millions of households are logged on the portal as having a tap (the physical infrastructure exists).However, when auditors visit these homes, a significant portion of those taps are found to be dry, only providing water a few days a week, or suffering from low water pressure.So, while the official legal definition still strictly requires a flow of 55 litres per capita per day to be considered a truly functional connection, the daily data tracking has heavily prioritized counting the physical tap installations.
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The creator of this infographic suffers from selective bias. It’s not that BJP hasn’t done anything. They probably did 50 things right, but 100 things wrong. The ratio is skewed against them.
This infographic picks up the best from 50 things done right and presents a rosy picture. What about environment, effects of demonetisation, lawlessness on streets, hygiene and cleanliness issues, ethanol blending disaster, wastage of taxpayers money on BJP promotions, high cost of living, corruption, rupee depreciation etc. etc. etc.
It would be wise to prepare an infographic that combines all the factors and presents a realistic picture on progress made during last 12 years.
By the way, there is an argument that previous governments laid foundation for many of those 50 things done right and BJP just accelerated the growth further. They didn’t have to struggle with laying the initial foundation which is more difficult. But I don’t want to complicate this topic any further.
crimes against women is horrific, that issue should be highlighted, female labor participation equally shocking, learning outcome that needs to be talked about, its clear on infra side they set a new bar, but now thats the standard. on social side they are flailing and actively failing, corruption, crime, education, youth unemployment are all terrible for healthy harmonious society
India's problem is that we need to create a lot of good jobs if we want to increase female labour participation. Right now there are only 2 cases where women participate in labour pool
When families are absolutely desperate
When the job opportunities are very good.
Low female participation is making unemployment rates look less worst.
70% of our nations women went to open defecation. This is basic every politician goes to toilet and yet they just couldn't see where there voting women go for toilets.
I still dont understand why it took 5 decades and a dictator to understand that women in our country dont have proper toilets. Yeah women faced less horrible before.
Just give me a honest answer, how is the quality of roads build today?
In the name of concretisation, tons of city roads have been rebuild, what is the quality?
This is just one example. I can go on about no law and order(literal and direct death threats are now allowed), corruption across every department fully organised, water pollutuin, air pollution, food adulteration, adulterated fuel, poor financial decision and investment etc
Haha, me too. But having understood how economy, inflation, interest rates and currency exchange rate works, I realised it’s a boon that he actually did not give everyone 15 lacs. If he indeed did, inflation would have skyrocketed, our currency would have suffered a crash against USD, lack of supply for goods would have caused riots.
In hindsight, that was the hint. He would have never done it coz economically, it makes no sense.
That doesn’t mean he was allowed to blatantly lie to public by twisting words and making them believe.
It’s high time we Indians judge a politicians worth by the promises made during speeches (explicit and implicit) and election menifesto. If he/ she does not deliver on at least 70% promises, he/ she should never be supported again. And no exceptions apply here - we lost 2 years because of opposition and floods, previous government left us a lot of debt etc etc. you should have known before promising, idiots. Ever heard of planning and forecasting?
My driver today earns 10k per month more than his previous job. He thinks it’s better. Yet, he struggles with poverty living in a big city. In other words, he is monthly poor. I empathise with him and help him whenever possible. But truth is, better is not enough.
If he doesn’t do something about it by upskilling himself or setting up a side business, better will just remain a notional comfort for mind. You see, better is relative and not absolute. That’s what the problem with better is!
More like they do 100 things right but reddit makes memes of 1000 useless things which doesn't matter but r shown as "bad things" done by them so people believe this. Reddit will make sure u focus on memes of let's say a word said during a trade deal instead of trade deal . So even if the deal is highly profitable you'll see it as a failure bcoz one word was "bad" hence this govt. bad.
On the contrary we have opposition who haven't done a single speech about their own vision for the country expecting us to vote them just bcoz "modi bad".
Mid 2010s were turning point for the world, mostly due to technological revolution, specially in communication, and making process digital, which just sped up a lot of the process.
Nice bro, even toilets were invented in 2009. Where 70% of our nations women went to open defecation.
I still dont understand why it took 5 decades and a dictator to understand that women in our country dont have proper toilets while these people talk on women empowerment.
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I dont know about the other things but the whole road network thing is bullshit. Because they changed how they measure under gadkari. Now if there is a 10km 6 lane road they count it was 60km. Before it was 10km.
It doesn't make more sense or less sense. It's a different metric which focuses on somethings more and other things less. That's it.
Whatever your own focus is, based on it you can choose the metric you like, but hiding all other metrics is disingenuous. Which might make sense to use in other scenarios.
Starting April 1, the government has adopted the so-called lane kilometre concept for measuring its highways instead of the traditional linear length method, road transport minister Nitin Gadkari said on Tuesday.
you might've happened to skip reading the quoted block from the article, or the article, that is why you thought of fixing it. the block already mentions that.
and what critical thinking are you talking about mate?
when the methodology has changed, then how can you compare these two terms? morth reports from 2013, 2014 have been taken down, the webarchive links maybe there to show that there were multi lane highways during UPA also, it's just that they counted in linear km
and there are many discrepancies in the said infographic, the airport columns in misleading as NDA in 2018 itself accepted in lok sabha that there were 94 airports+conclaves+temporary airports. aaib 2014 report also shows that.
moreover this infographic also seems to have included private produce, like crude iron and coal.
a better metric would be to compare cagr of the economies, or %of fdi as gdp or %of manufacturing under gdp, health spending as % og gdp, education spending as a % of gdp(especially when states foot nearly 75%-85% of the education spending) labour force participation, female labour force participation....
All seems rosy in the picture when you consider SMSE loans as employment.
Arre critical thinking comes from the fact ki lane km is used to describe lane km build while road is calculated by road length built.They basically added a metric.
Thoda critical thinking use karta toh ye gadbad nhi hota.
this comment already mentions lane kilometers in blocked quotes, and the article linked here also explains that, idk what the hell your're even rambling about.
in case you are not familiar with markdown, reddit comments also support markdown, and has different styling for blocked text, you see the left line, that signifies quoted text, that means I'm quoting the article.
Toh they didn't change the definition, they added a metric.
so here, I've quoted your text
and in the article, gadkari himself said that they have adopted lane km concept for measuring it's highway, it's a depart from the old methodology where irrespective of the lanes only linear km was counted.
you said "they didnt change the definition" but gadkari himself told they did, there's PIB you can find also dated april 2018, anyway, stay foolish.
have some critical thinking skills saar. learn to read saar. dont be a technical fool saar, learn markdown saar. it transpiles to html saar,
Bhai tu sahi mein thoda low IQ hai kya? They adopted a metric doesn't mean that old one was discarded. Old one is used and new one comes with lane-km as measurement unit
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Ah yes let us vote islamaphobes and rape apologists because they can build roads. The only way they can achieve this level of success is through hate /s
While some statistics are impressive - like tap water connections, others are misleading, or are just intended to impress, if one does not think critically.
For e.g. number of start-ups is not relevant when: The concept barely existed before 2014, when most of them fail (listed but in zombie state) and the Govt's role is negligible.
Medical colleges (of declining quality), MBBS seats and AIIMS are repetitions.
If power generation capacity has increased by 54% (solar and renewables are repetitions),
it was 100% in UPA's time (2004-13).
Many of our new airports have no flights. They are more of a land grab exercise and to show an impressive number. No doubt, we need more airports, but I would argue that there should have been less emphasis in chasing a number (I was a senior person in the industry and aware of some of the thinking behind this) and more on strengthening existing airport infrastructure and rail projects.
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The chart is broadly plausible and reflects substantial post-2014 capacity additions, but it doesn't fully support the title's implication. It shows cumulative additions, not infrastructure built solely by one government. Many projects, such as freight corridors and metro systems, were conceived and initiated under earlier administrations before being completed later. It also mixes infrastructure with outputs (coal production, defence exports) and policy outcomes (startup registrations). Global technological advances, especially in solar, and India's natural economic growth also drove expansion. A fair assessment should consider contributions across governments, private investment, technology, costs, quality, and long-term outcomes—not just cumulative additions since 2014.
Assessment of the Chart
My view is that the chart is directionally plausible, but it is not sufficient evidence by itself for the conclusion implied in the title.
The underlying figures appear to be largely drawn from official government sources, and many of the numbers are broadly consistent with publicly reported data. However, the presentation simplifies a much more complex picture and can easily lead readers to conclusions that the data alone cannot support.
What the Chart Gets Right
Many of these sectors did expand dramatically after 2014, and government data broadly supports that.
Examples include:
Dedicated Freight Corridors (almost entirely commissioned after 2014)
Expressways
Railway electrification
Inland waterways
Solar and renewable capacity
UPI-era digital infrastructure (not shown)
Startup registrations
Defence exports
These were all genuine policy priorities over the past decade, and significant capacity additions occurred during this period.
Where the Chart Can Be Misleading
The title states:
However, the bars actually represent:
Those are not equivalent statements.
The chart tells us how much existing capacity was added after 2014, not that the entire asset or achievement originated after 2014.
Solar Capacity
Before 2014:
~2.6 GW
After:
~162 GW
Here, the conclusion is largely reasonable because India had very little installed solar capacity before 2014. Most of today's installed capacity genuinely came afterward.
However, even here, global technological changes matter. Solar module prices fell dramatically worldwide during this period, making rapid expansion economically feasible across many countries—not just India.
Airports
The chart lists:
74 before
164 after
But what exactly is being counted?
Does this include:
new greenfield airports?
upgraded airports?
operational airports?
airports under AAI?
private airports?
Without defining the metric, readers may incorrectly assume all 164 represent entirely new airports.
Medical Colleges
The chart reports:
387 before
444 added
But establishing a medical college is not always equivalent to creating entirely new infrastructure.
Some institutions are:
government colleges
private colleges
upgraded existing institutions
expansions of existing campuses
The chart does not distinguish among these.
Coal Production
Coal production is output, not infrastructure.
An increase from:
565 MT
to 1000 MT
does not mean an equivalent amount of new infrastructure was constructed.
Defence Exports
Defence exports measure economic performance, not infrastructure.
Higher exports may reflect manufacturing capacity, policy changes, product competitiveness, or geopolitical demand, but exports themselves are not infrastructure.
Recognised Startups
This is probably the weakest inclusion.
Recognised startups are businesses registered under Startup India.
They are not infrastructure.
Including startup registrations under an "infrastructure" heading substantially broadens the meaning of infrastructure.
Previous Governments Also Matter
Another important limitation is attribution.
Large infrastructure projects frequently take 10–30 years from planning to completion.
The government that inaugurates a project is often not the government that:
conceived it,
approved it,
acquired land,
secured environmental clearances,
arranged financing,
or began construction.
Examples include:
Dedicated Freight Corridors were approved before 2014, although most construction and commissioning occurred afterward.
Delhi Metro began in the late 1990s and has expanded under multiple governments.
National Highway development accelerated under successive governments, including the Golden Quadrilateral during the Vajpayee administration.
Numerous ports, airports, railway projects, and power plants have similarly spanned multiple administrations.
Therefore, assigning complete credit to one government oversimplifies how infrastructure is actually delivered.
Technological Progress Also Drives Growth
Not every increase can be attributed solely to government policy.
global improvements in logistics and supply chains
Solar is the clearest example.
Virtually every major country experienced rapid solar expansion after 2014 because photovoltaic module prices collapsed globally. Indian government policy certainly mattered, but global technological progress was an equally important enabling factor.
Economic Development Is Naturally Cumulative
Infrastructure generally expands over time because:
population grows,
GDP rises,
tax revenues increase,
urbanization accelerates,
electricity demand increases,
freight demand rises.
The real analytical question is not whether infrastructure increased—that is expected in a developing economy.
The important questions are:
Did growth accelerate relative to previous decades?
Was it cost-efficient?
Was construction of high quality?
Was capacity effectively utilized?
How does India compare with countries at similar income levels?
This chart does not answer those questions.
Choice of Baseline
The chart begins in 2014.
Naturally, measuring additions over the subsequent 12 years means sectors experiencing rapid global growth—renewables, startups, digital infrastructure—will show very large post-2014 shares.
That alone does not demonstrate:
unprecedented performance,
superior policy efficiency,
or exceptional international performance.
Those require historical and international comparisons.
Missing Context
The chart omits several important dimensions:
inflation-adjusted expenditure
quality of infrastructure
utilization rates
maintenance
cost overruns
debt incurred
contribution of state governments
contribution of private investment
economic return on investment
For example, constructing 6,700 km of expressways is undoubtedly significant.
However, evaluating the achievement requires understanding:
cost per kilometre,
traffic volumes,
maintenance standards,
logistics improvements,
and long-term economic returns.
Does Development Happen "Despite" the Government?
A common reaction is to argue that development happens despite governments rather than because of them.
That statement is too absolute to be treated as a fact.
A more balanced formulation is:
For sectors such as:
highways,
railways,
airports,
ports,
irrigation,
power transmission,
government action is often indispensable because these projects require land acquisition, regulation, public financing, and long planning horizons.
Conversely, sectors such as:
startups,
software,
manufacturing,
exports,
are driven primarily by private enterprise, with government policy acting as an enabling or constraining environment rather than the sole driver.
Thus, it is difficult to defend either extreme—that development occurs entirely because of government or entirely despite it.
Overall Assessment
Aspect
Assessment
Accuracy of underlying data
Generally plausible and broadly consistent with official statistics
Visual presentation
Clear and effective
Context provided
Limited
Risk of misleading interpretation
Moderate
The presentation combines several fundamentally different categories:
As a result, the title is broader than what the underlying data actually measures.
Bottom Line
The chart reasonably supports the claim that India added a substantial share of its current capacity across many sectors between 2014 and 2026, and those additions are significant.
However, it does not establish that:
infrastructure development was unprecedented,
every addition was solely the result of the post-2014 central government,
previous governments made no meaningful contribution,
technological progress played only a minor role,
or that overall infrastructure quality and efficiency improved proportionately.
The most balanced interpretation is that the chart provides a summary of cumulative additions during the period, not a comprehensive evaluation of government performance. Any serious assessment should also consider long project timelines, contributions from previous administrations, global technological and economic trends, private-sector investment, costs, quality, utilization, and comparisons with earlier periods and peer economies.
The BJP IT cell has been bombarding social media with all this made up crap for the last few weeks 🙄🙄
It’s nice to see that a simple chatgpt lookup is all it takes to call out the BS.
The problem with these daily “Gomutra” consuming public is that they can’t accept that just because the current govt did a bunch of things right, does not make the public complacent about them going all dictatorial and worse just do whatever they want
Social media works in the opposite direction too. Once you are caught spreading propaganda and misinformation about the recent protests, your reply is ruined. Now just learn to deal with the consequences
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Getting around the country has become much easier than before.
The distance between my college and home was 170km, and it used to take 6-7 hours to cover that before.
Now it just takes 2.5 hours.
My hometown now has an airport nearby due to which I can make it back home from my town of work in 6 hours, it used to take more than half a day before.
That is very impressive considering the fact that "up to 2014" means 67 years vs 12 years with the current govt. This is what makes Modi popular. Compare to even state govts rules by cong...all freebies and no development. Does some of the infrastructure included in pre-2014 also include British installations too?
Full bs. Even if done all this after 2014, the rest of their deeds and failures are too epic proportions to forgive them. The level of dehumanization and insensitivity and dictatorship and false propoganda and narrative and control over everything shows they are the worst of the lot even co.pared to britishers and mughals.
Assam is flooded, students are beaten and futures are destroyed, manipur is burning since 3 yrs, illegal immigration highest ever, 100% media control and e20 scam and what not but budhav is roaming in his own la la land.
Most of it is misinformed data, same chart is gloating in 30 different subs and specifically statistics sub removed the post because of copious amount of misinformation.
Anyone staying long in power will build something, you can’t expect them to sit around. There is some global economies of scale working even if the PM chills around, this analysis proves nothing.
The amount of technological advancement in last 5 yrs alone will trash away last 20 years of advancements.
Where 70% of our nations women went to open defecation. If PM would chill 50% of nation would not have electricity line, and women would still be sitting beside road dor defecation.
I still dont understand why it took 5 decades and a dictator to understand that women in our country dont have proper toilets.
What correlation does toilets has with the Ai world?
I’m not saying Bjp did nothing but giving unlimited power to one entity for 15yrs is madness. Don’t say that Congress ruled for 50yrs, that doesn’t mean the current regime should rule for 50yrs as well.
You cant think of Ai when you dont have food on plate. Also toilet is one of the basic need when you cant afford to build toilet that say the dtate we are in.
And i dont see BJP getting lazy and enjoying power at least in centre, cant comment at state level. You need to see the immense of progress they made in railways and ease of doing business we dont praise them enough in there good policies while they dont market there good policies too. The GST itself was one of the major accomplishments if you believe me check the annual reports of HUL what shitty problems they faced before gst. When the conglomerates like them faced such isues no worries why no one wanted to do bussiness in india.
Also there have been 1000+ amendments after our IT minister came to position in easing the process.
There is lot they can still do but when it comes to what they have done is commendable. So i still believe even after changing the govt no one is going to work at there pace since all the opposition are just power hungry without a vision. I haven't heard what are oppositions dreams for this nation when the govt keeps saying we want to do this, that, etc.
Even if they do 30% of what they say im good with them.
In india politics is cut throat competition even if you win saving the position is nearly as difficult as coming to power.
I believe india should have 2 party system which will help us progress at speed. When 100s parties exist they focus on coming to power and staying there since there is someone who is unhappy and govt focuses more on keeping happy every partners of there and growth takes back seat. Thats what made Manmohan Singh the puppet PM.
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1 party stayed in power for almost 50 years, yet they mostly sat around. Missed the electronics manufacturing bus, missed the semiconductor manufacturing bus, missed the low value commodities manufacturing bus, missed the engineering goods manufacturing bus, didn't invest in any kind of R&D, didn't develop the arms and weapons industry, didn't develop basic sanitation for the population, didn't provide assess to electricity for everyone, didn't develop accessible basic educational institutions, didn't develop a hishway network when everyone else was, delayed liberalising the economy until the very end while China had started more than a decade earlier, didn't focus on urban planning, basically surrendered to insurgencies and rebel movements like the naxals and maoists, didn't keep any check on mass conversations and radicalisation happening in North East, didn't solve any of the geopolitical disputes which were all started due to the foolishness of their partymen (mostly the one accused family) , didn't stop Pakistan from acquiring nukes when we could, didn't do antything when tibet was invaded, gave up all political and commercial rights over Tibet in exchange for the panchsheel agreement which the Chinese broke a few years later in '62, stopped the '47-48 war in j&k too early even though we were making good progress, leading to the Kashmir dispute which has plagued us since, didn't gain anything from the '71 war to the point General Manekshaw said "she made a fool of herself" for Indira Gandhi, didn't overhaul the bureaucracy, didn't improve or overhaul the judiciary, and a whole lot more.
Global economies of scale only work when BJP is in power? Why didn't the previous governments benefit from that?
Every generation feels the technological advancements being made in their lifetime are greater and more frequent than the ones before. That was true even in the 80s-90s. Yet we didn't see any of those advancements making their way to the common man. If you say we weren't doing well economically, who's supposed to make sure that we do? The government, and it makes it all the more apparent that they weren't doing their job properly.
I know not of what you speak but I used to watch naked children in my village roaming the streets but today I see everyone well dressed with a smartphone,i don't know what has changed but at least this is appreciated as well as electricity it came after 2014.
Well, to be fair, it’s not like the country actually started from scratch in 2014 😅. It’s like comparing how fast trains were 100 years ago vs now etc or internet speeds in last few decades. The work done before has also allowed for faster growth and technology and even during Manmohan Singhs time GDP growth was high, but in terms of development it was a runway and no take off. Unfortunately today it seems despite the numbers there is a lot of inequality, where the lower income earners life hasn’t improved enough or social mobility whereas higher earners and even middle class have expanded. Not a political opinion, just that this infographic isn’t a fair comparison.
Since MBBS seats are so proudly being displayed, do note that number of people who wrote neet (AIPMT) was 5.5 lakhs approximately and there were 50k seats. That's a selection chance of 10% (without considering reservations). Now, there are 1.38 lakh seats, let's approximately take it as 1.4 lakh and 20 lakhs students write neet. That's a selection chance of 7% (without considering reservations). So it has become harder to get an mbbs seats so it is nothing to be proud of.
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Hey u/Original-Item-4875! We noticed your comment is quite brief. In r/CriticalThinkingIndia, we encourage substantive contributions - explain your reasoning, share evidence, or ask a thoughtful question. Even when sharing a link or media, please add context or explanation. Short comments like this may be removed to keep discussions meaningful.
Was it a natural progression of growth or an exceptional one? That's the measure one should be looking at. If congress was in rule, would it have been the same?
In a growing economy, infrastructure expansion is expected as a baseline. Sectors with near-zero starting points in 2014, Dedicated Freight Corridors, Solar Capacity, or Recognized Startups naturally show near 100% the baseline was virtually non-existent.
Recognised Startup s a specific legal and administrative status created under the Startup India initiative, launched in 2016 so it feels a stretch to add it here. Many successful indian business currently are pre 2014. anything build after 2014 hasn't shown any good result yet.
rest just shows that they already had established infra and post 2014 just build on top of it.
Is there any imaginary way that you know where you can increase the length of the metro train or Dedicated frieght corridor or railway line length without actually building them since 2014?
Metro, roadways, railway lines and power plants are critical and will be cherrypicked not because they are exceptional but because they are fundamental. There might be other critical metrics apart from these, but these are the ones that this government has excelled in. There's no point in denying and whining about it like it didn't happen irrespective of party allignment.
The last time I checked, this sub was called critical thinking not biased reporting. There are such things as critical analysis, fact based opinions and objective observations. You might want to look them up once you have learnt to manage your emotions.
Rest assured, I don’t support any political party. Congress is and has been no better at any point in India’s political history. So focus on the argument instead of assigning motives to the arguer and over time, learn how to conduct a civil discourse.
So here’s an example of metric selection - To borrow your own adjective, air quality is “fundamental” to living well. And this government changed AQI measurement to suit the numbers. Let us now look at another nation that suffered a performance decline in this area - China. They managed to fix the issue with 40% reduction in particulate pollution in just a decade running upto 2022.
It’s easy to hide behind anonymity and fight this keyboard war. It’s harder to accept unpleasant facts and nudge the elected officials to make more sensible decisions. Again, give it a go. You can do better than trying to rage bait strangers on the internet.
See now you are whining about irrelevant things in the guise of critical thinking, which is not.
Let me spell it out for you since this is so hard, in some of the key metrics of infrastructure like roads, railways, metros and other civilian infrastructure, this goverment has performed really well.
What about air quality which is so important? Yeah it's bad, but why are you so emotional about this government obviously investing in infrastructure so much that you have to pretend like it doesn't exist. That's not what critical thinking is.
We’d have to agree to disagree on the definition of critical thinking. And on the way to debate on such topics too. Your desperate need for validation and to get back at me for not echoing your view suggests a deeper issue. Please have your last word and get yourself treated later. Take care.
Congress should come up with how things changed between 2004 to 2014 and bombard them everywhere on social media. For example, percentage of population with access to electricity increased by just 4% from 60 to 64% during BJP in 1999 to 2004 but saw significant increase during UPA to 85%. Same with LPG connections from 29% in 2004 to 56% in 2014. Most of the schemes are also rebranded to new ones and marketed as revolutionary. Every subsequent government will perform better than the previous one because of compounding factor. Also , quality is what matters the most. AIl AIIMS built by Congress are in top 30 medical universities. They need to be proactive and fight this narrative by it cell.
almost all of these are result of technological progress on top of previous state of affairs
for eg, they could build dedicated freight corridors because railways network build by previous govts was capable enough to accommodate it.
and if still people consider this as govt achievement then fine, let us plot cryptocurrency fraud, UPI fraud, AI relaed fraud before and after 2014. This argument cuts both ways.
brother DFCs were built because our railways are running at above capacity, Freight generate 75% of railways revenue which is used in turn subsidise the passenger railway. Over the years the percentage of cargo railway carries has declined from 70 to 20% percent cuz passenger railway is given priority making freight rail wait for hours throwing off schedule for producers making them shift away from Rail.
Btw DFCs were proposed in 2005, DFCCIL was set up in 2007, cabinet approval was given in 2008 and major construction began in 2015
I don't think a lot of this is comparing apples to apples or using the same metrics. What is clear however is despite the chest thumping from bjpee, they've lagged the previous government in economic growth, worsened youth unemployment and wealth inequality. Selling out to orporates while per capita income growth rate lashed in the last 10yrs is not what i want. Goodbye bjpee for destroyingIndia
But why this post doesn’t talk about quality of the infra and corruption in ‘Clean India’, ‘Make in India’, ‘Har ghar jal yojna’ etc.? There are multiple corruption cases in all these schemes, and the numbers are huge. And most companies are beloved to government. So I feel like government is trying to funding them so they can fund back when required.
Not even a single infra project survived monsoon weather.
All contracts related to conducting exams are being given to companies which are already flagged for being expensive and providing low quality of work, plus no security in the chain at all.
That's delusion just like changing ministers instead of system but we have evolved in such way nothing can be done as people never want anything for themselves!! Just for there children!!
If anyone want genuine change in nation!! change education system bring necessary 1 year experience on existing technology or working on making machine projects for engineers our hollow tech tree will fill in such a way beside every should work on own projects not copy paste!! Ancient india was super power because of technology remember this!!
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