‘You pay ₹800 for water in Bengaluru’: Finfluencer questions ₹10 trillion hype
A 6,000-litre water tanker in Bengaluru cost ₹500 last year. Today, it’s nearly ₹800. That’s a 60% jump in just 12 months — and for Akshat Shrivastava, founder of Wisdom Hatch and a popular finfluencer, it captures exactly why the average Indian feels poorer, despite headlines about GDP growth and rising salaries.
“You feel poor because the cost of essential items has gone up like crazy,” he writes. Medical inflation is at 14%, children’s education fees are rising at 15–20%, and mobile bills alone could climb another 20% this year. And the underlying cause, he says, is not just economic—it’s systemic. “The primary reason is corruption.”
Shrivastava questions why citizens paying high taxes are still forced to buy basics like water. “You should not even be paying for a water tanker to begin with,” he notes. “Water seems like a basic right when people are paying massive taxes.”
The same applies to education. “If you have been paying direct taxes for years, you should expect free (or subsidized) quality education for your kids. But all this money goes to political corruption,” he adds. “You can swing around any number—that we will become a $10 trillion economy or whatever. Fact is: it does not matter. What matters is access to necessary services at an affordable price.”
The data only reinforces his argument. Salary hikes in India are projected to average 9.2–9.5% in 2025, while inflation is expected to hover around 3.6%. On paper, that means a modest 4% real wage growth. But for the middle class, rising costs in healthcare, housing, education, and utilities are far outpacing salary increases.
According to industry experts, most employees are receiving hikes just around inflation, with top performers barely getting 1–3 percentage points more. As a result, discretionary spending is down and essential expenses are consuming larger portions of household income.
“Your salary will continue to grow slower than the growth rate of necessary services,” Shrivastava concludes. “And this makes people poorer.”
