Rupees six lakh crore! This was God’s gift to India over the last four years. This was the bonanza that the Narendra Modi government reaped from lower global oil prices during its tenure. Rs 6,00,000 crore is approximately the amount we spend collectively (Centre and states combined) as a nation in educating all our children and providing healthcare to all our citizens in one year. It is three times India’s annual spending on defence.

This oil bonanza could have educated 50 crore more children, quadrupled the number of public hospitals or bought three times more equipment for our jawans.

The amount of Rs six lakh crore is a once-in a lifetime bounty that may never come back. Yet, as a nation we have squandered it away. After four years, we have nothing substantial to show for it. This, in essence, sums up the four years of the Modi government in its economic performance – a case of squandered opportunities.

When Modi took over as PM in May 2014, he was presented with a perfect alignment of stars – a recovering global economy, falling oil prices and most importantly, an absolute majority in the Lok Sabha. There could be no better landscape to deliver robust economic growth, usher in greater economic prosperity for hundreds of millions of Indians and undertake structural economic reforms.

Instead, four years later, most economists are searching hard for ‘greenshoots’ in the economy. The average Indian earned Rs 25,000 a year in 2004 when Dr Manmohan Singh took over as PM, which grew to Rs 85,000 by the time he demitted office in 2014, an annual growth of 14 per cent.

This was achieved despite the severe macro-economic headwinds of the global financial crisis, severe slump in the global economy, sky-high oil prices and a fractious coalition. Given the strong tailwinds for the Modi government when it took office, it was reasonable to expect that the average Indian’s annual income will grow much faster than 14 per cent. Even if per capita incomes had grown just a percentage point higher at 15 per cent, the average Indian’s annual income should have grown to Rs 1.3 lakh a year today. Instead, the average Indian today earns Rs 1.1 lakh a year.

Gross capital formation in an economy is a clear indicator of the investment climate and the appetite for the private sector to expand and create jobs. Fixed capital formation fell to 29 per cent of GDP in the Modi government’s tenure from its high of 34 per cent during the UPA tenure.