Fadnavis shifts focus to services from farms; aims to grow Maharashtra economy to $1 trillion by 2025

Devendra Fadnavis-led Maharashtra government targets to grow the state economy to $1 trillion by 2025 from $400 billion now. The growth plan is in line with Prime Minister Narendra Modi's vision to make India a $5 trillion economy in the next few years, said Chief Minister Fadnavis in Magnetic Maharashtra summit in Mumbai.
 
"The growth rate of the state is 9.4 per cent in 2016-17 and we intend to accelerate it to 15.4 per cent to achieve the $1 trillion target by 2025," he said. At the present 9.4 per cent growth rate, achieving the $1 trillion target will be possible only by 2029, he added.
 
According to the 2017-18 estimates, Maharashtra is expected to grow to $390 billion economy, followed by Uttar Pradesh ($225 billion), Tamil Nadu ($210 billion), Karnataka ($200 billion) and Gujarat ($199 billion).
 
Fadnavis detailed a road map for growth in the summit, giving emphasis to services sector. "The government looks to grow the share of services sector to 67 per cent in the state GDP by 2025 from 15.5 per cent now. He aims to grow the share of industries sector to 27 per cent from 12.3 per cent.
 
Fadnavis said that we need to shift to a service oriented economy. "The growth of services and industries will help to unlock the unproductive labour in agriculture. We will have to reskill the unproductive workforce in agriculture for accommodating them in other sectors," he said.
 
The state's 50 per cent of the employment is in agriculture, but the sector contributes just 11 per cent to the state's economy. However, manufacturing contributes 30 per cent to the economy with 20 per cent of the state's manpower, while services contributes 59 per cent to the economy with 30 per cent manpower, he said.
 
Maharashtra plans to skill 5 million youth by 2022. In addition, the state targets to enhance ease of doing business and public investments in infrastructure. It looks to connect the high value geographies in the state through high-speed corridors.

Fadnavis said that the state targets to incubate 10,000 start ups in 5 years and it will create 5 lakh employment. There will be emphasis for Fintech startups--- chief minister plans to incubate 300 Fintech startups in 3 years.
 
Five defence clusters is his another project, and he looks to attract a foreign direct investment (FDI) of $2 billion for the defence projects. He added that Maharashtra contributed 51 per cent to the country's FDI.