AP Photo

Singh has been a silent witness to the fiscal drain, although he has been outspoken in the past about deficit-causing schemes that have an adverse impact on the government’s financial health and resulting inflation, which ultimately hurts the poor the most. Perhaps such profligacy might have been ignored had India continued on its path of growth. Paradoxically, state revenues have only burgeoned as new high-growth service taxpaying sectors have emerged, such as software, telecom, hospitality and outsourcing.