Six charts comparing headline Indian GDP growth with the underlying fundamentals — private capex, foreign investment, household savings, and household debt — since 2012, with vertical markers at demonetisation, GST, the 2019 corporate tax cut, and Covid.
Strip the props
What's been holding up Indian GDP since demonetisation
Headline GDP growth looks fine. Strip out the public capex tripling, the post-Covid liquidity wave, and the 2019 corporate tax cut on earnings — and the underlying picture is harder to defend.
Each chart below shows one piece on the same time axis. Vertical lines mark four shocks: demonetisation, GST, the corporate tax cut, and Covid. Use the pills to focus on one side of the ledger at a time.
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The closed loop. Public capex tripled. Fiscal deficit narrowed anyway. How? RBI dividends 9×'d to ₹2.69L cr. Fuel excise on petrol stayed at 2× the 2014 level even after partial rollbacks. Households paid for the capex twice — once at the pump, once via crowding out of savings. Headline GDP held up. Real wages didn't.