Austerity is a bogey in our lopsided governance. We have gone out of proportion when it comes to income and expenditure, and all tall claims of reforms and rightsizing have fallen short of realistic implementation. The admission from the government that the cost of civil administration has increased by 13% to Rs161.2 billion in July-Sept should not raise any eyebrows. Perhaps that was a given, taking into account our inconsistency in policy and the ad-hocism that we are obsessed with.

The data released by the finance ministry says........

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