DNA Money Edit: More Robin Hood policies on the anvil?

At a time when India faces at least a couple of serious banking frauds, equality is a direct casualty. Rising over the last three decades, inequality in India has reached a level where the total wealth of Indian billionaires is 15% of the GDP, according to a new report by Oxfam India. These inequalities are the result of a package of reforms adopted during the big bang liberalisation of 1991 and the subsequent policies adopted, according to the international rights group.

Exactly a month ago, it indicated the government policies claiming that India’s richest 1% garnered 73% of the total wealth generated in 2017. Its annual survey, unveiled in Davos hours before the World Economic Forum (WEF) got underway, also revealed that 67 crore Indians comprising the population’s poorest half saw their wealth rise by just 1% in 2017.

Over the last few years, the government has tried hard to support the case of the downtrodden in the country by raising revenues through wealth tax and super-rich surcharge. But the mission looks incomplete. As the author of the Oxfam report rightly noted, the only way to reverse the current trend is to increase tax collection through progressive direct taxation and spending them on health, education and nutrition for the poor in the country.