Giridhar Mamidi on the mission of Arth Yagna on how to turn the economy around

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• As for as the increase in demand is concerned, I feel it can best be achieved by reducing the tax. As expressed by the host, it is the growing out-look of the countries to tax your spending rather than the Income you earn. Hence the tax to be reduced in Bharat, if not completely scrapped, is Personal Income Tax. Govt. should consider this at least now.

• The suggestion to reduce the salaries of the employees is impassible to implement. In fact, the present situation has given a nice respite to all those escapist employees to evade work in the pretext of taking precautions and receive full salaries. Despite Un-lock 2 and all the employees attending, majority of the offices are turning out very little work. Hence the urgent need is to improve the turn-out and productivity of the employees at least to justify the Public expenditure on them to some extant. To achieve this, I suggest reducing the weekend holidays to one on Sunday, if not one holiday each for each full moon or no moon days in a month like we used to have during the reigns of Hindu Kings three four centuries ago. But to implement such measures, the Govt. has to declare Economic Emergency in the country. In the present conditions, I feel there is no wrong in attempting it.

• Nice thoughts/ideas by Giridhar Mamidi. Agree on more simplification at all levels. However, I’m little ambivalent on a two tier GST. There are several highly climate disrupting products that need to be at the highest GST level whether it is 2,3, or 4 tiers. This will spur innovation to transition us to a low carbon economy. For example, replacing plastics with bioplastics, leather with lab grown leather, meat with Beyond Meat type substitute, cement with fly ash or products developed by companies such as Carbicrete, Mitticool, etc. We need to think of GST in the context of creating a cyclical economy, i.e., keeping our air, water, and soil clean as postulated even in the Vedas.