The biggest mental distress in every NRI is not managing the family but rather is getting clarity if you should stay in foreign land or move back to India. It is not just you, even I daily wake up with the same confusion.
I am more than confident that you already have a set bank balance value defined after which you will plan to buy Land in India and do farming. Do not worry, we all are in the same boat.
We Indians being emotional always think with heart, which is not actually bad, but sometimes makes us regret. This is not because your intentions are bad, but it is because you do not have experience of that situation. Think that something similar to making bad decisions of your childhood which seemed to be perfect that time but definitely we will not let our kids do that.
Let us not go with emotional content further, rather let us understand a practical way of thinking. Lets together assume that we have decided to move back to India with 5 Crores INR cash with us.
Here is the future
Your Dreamland for Farming
Every other land you see in India is disputed. Sometimes it is the papers, sometimes it is illegal possession, sometimes tresspassing and sometimes some other stupid thing. Let us assume you are lucky and you get a land for 1 crore and setup boundry and fencing for the safety. Let us say you end up hiring one caretaker for daily needs which costs you somewhere around 5 Lakhs per year. Trust me you are putting a liability as you will have zero returns from his work as he is just a care taker and not a worker growing crops alone for your livelihood.
Let us imagine that you have someone in your family who will be with you to take care for the land and you do not spend anything for maintenance of your dreamland farmhouse. Still to make it running you will spend good money. This purely is individual specific so let us keep it with your wisdom to decide how much you are going to pay for that. But i hope it is not going to be less than 3 Lakhs INR per year. So for your dreamland, let us assume you will have following expense summary.
- Asset Expense 1 – 1 Crore.
- Liability Expense 1 – 3 Lakhs Per Year
- Mental Expense 1 – Trouble of buying and maintaining a land withuot any external influence.
Your Food , Sorry I mean your Health
For food I am not going to compare costs at all. After living out of India, I am 100% sure you will be least bothered spending few extra bucks for good product. But I challenge you even after spending 2 times extra, you will not be able to find anything good.
Water is bad, Air is bad, Food adulteration is at its peak. Forget about day to day food. Even Prasad being prepared in Tirupati is adulterated. Just because you have a false ego of returning back to your hometown so that you can sit and gossip with your friends, this does not give you any reason to force your kids to go with you and suffer with all this. Imagine someone takes you to 10 levels below what you ate in your childhood.
Your Dream Car
After driving a feature loaded car in USA, definitely you are not going back to drive a compact cost effective vehicle. Again it all depends on individual specific choice, but definitely nothing less than you will expect in your Garage. Moreover, driving a car in USA is less expensive than compared to India. Petrol Costs more than 100 Rs per litre. That is not the end, the following expense also counts :
- Pollution certificate cost (Yearly)
- Insurance Cost (Yearly) Comes out to be nearly same. Dont compare what you used to pay for your car before going abroad. That time your car was also different and situation was also different.
- Fuel Costs based on your driving. Price is literally 60 % more than in USA.
- $2.5 \div 3.785 \times 90.7 \approx ₹60$ per litre, so ₹100 per litre is (100−60)/60×100≈66.7%(100−60)/60×100≈66.7 more expensive.
- Toll Tax
So if you drive generously with standard average of 30 Km per day, the average monthly cost comes to be 10000 INR per month, which is around 1.2 Lakhs per year.
- Asset Expense 2 – 25 Lakhs
- Liability Expense 2 – 1.2 Lakhs Per Year
- Mental Expense 2 – Traffic, Traffic sense, stress of road rage, parking cost whereever you go.
Your Children Education
Here you pay taxes and you get world class education for free. I know we all have a dream of buying a farmland. But you will compromise the education. Then you will wake up and relocate to a place where you can get your children better education. Education is a scam in India. Education itself is expensive in India. Being a NRI kid your kid will get comparatively more fees requirements as well. Just google up the expenses, but trust me if you sum up School fees with Uniforms, Transport, Extra curricular etc you are not getting anything lesser than 6 Lakhs per year.
- Asset Expense 3 – Reservation, Lack of opportuities
- Liability Expense 3 – 6 Lakhs Per Year
- Mental Expense 2 – Stress of making your kids successful will haunt you forever.
You pay higher costs & Deductibles is for Insurance
I agree if you go and get treatment for common cold it makes you feel looted, but just imagine in your whole life how much such instances you will see. Imagine a situation that you eat adulterated paneer whole of your life, Drink water which has Radio active elements, Have AQI not less than 200, will you end up getting this much small health problems. I am sure anyone who is not mentally prepared will see a surprise once he gets some critical illness. Then comes insurance into picture. Let us assume the expense you have to pay at hospital is 20 lakhs, In India, you will end up paying 15 lakhs as Insurance deductible was 5 lakhs. I hope you get this sarcasm. I am sure all NRI readers will understand. But if you are Indian and reading this article, let me tell you deductible is your maximum limit what you pay during one year for your treatment.
I am sure if you compare cost for health treatment, you compare it in regards to Purchasing Power Parity. Spending 10 lakhs for treatment if your annual income is 1 Crore is 10% of your annual income. Whereas, spending 10 lakhs for your medical treatment when annual income itself is 10 lakh is 100% of your annual income.
Corruption
I am sure you never paid anything extra to anyone for getting any Government benefit outside India. Trust me you cannot even get a Drivers license easily in India.
Tax is charity in India
You pay Income tax, then GST, then Toll tax, This tax, that tax. But what do you get at the end. I am sure you are not getting even a single dollar benefit from government for which you are not paying. Do not say Roads, Fly Overs hospitals. You pay road tax for them and some one says it is for National Highways then ask them for what toll is then.
World Class technology for collection and Worst technology if Government has to do something for people
Where Government wants money from people, they have world class technology. Like your speed camera will never fail to record even one miss. It will never happen that you overspeeded once your life and cameras were down that day. Moreover they can even identify the phone you are using in your car because they want to send you collection bill. But if you need cameras for safety concerns then those do not work. If they work, they are nothing more than time stamping devices that just tell the time of the crime.
I can write countless things with never ending article, but I will leave the further though provocation to you guys, But do not forget : I added some expenses up for you. Now you add up the remaining ones and see your situation.
Also Read : Never sell your property in India without this advise.