Farmers are already reaping the benefits of the reforms brought in six months ago and better infrastructure and market access for the farm sector could take the rural economy to new heights, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Saturday.
Mr. Modi urged industry to significantly scale up their domestic investments, so as to evoke greater confidence in the country’s growth story among foreign investors. It was imperative for businesses to devote more energy to bridging the rural-urban divide and support women, youth and smaller enterprises, he said in an address at the Assocham Foundation week.
“Keeping the country’s needs in mind, work on the formulation of new laws is continuing ceaselessly. The benefits of the farm reforms that were implemented six months ago, have also begun reaching the farmers… If our farm sector gets access to better promotion, infrastructure and markets, then our entire rural economy can reach the peak,” he stated.
India’s capability
“India is also capable of fulfilling its own needs and help the world. From farmer to pharma, India has demonstrated this. Now in vaccines also, India will not only fulfil its own needs but also deliver on the hopes of several countries in the world,” he asserted.
“Industry can help multiply the efforts of the government over the past six years to reduce the rural and urban divide. ASSOCHAM members can help give our villages’ produce a global platform. To ensure that the farmers in villages can reach global markets digitally, we are working on providing broadband connectivity to every village,” he said.
Mr. Modi referred to rural opportunities like organic farming and herbal products that could be promoted by industry bodies around the world. The Central government, State governments and farmer organisations should work together, he urged.
Industry’s role
Achieving the Atma Nirbhar Bharat vision expeditiously was also a challenge that industry must take up, with the government playing its role as an enabler. “The government can give the necessary facilities and create the right environment. The government can encourage, reform policies. But it’s our colleagues in the industry that will transform this support to success,” he pointed out.
Taking on industry’s reluctance to invest, the Prime Minister drew an analogy with investment advisors. “We often meet people who say this stock or this sector is good, so invest there. But we always check if the one giving the advice and praising its prospects, is investing in it himself or not? The same applies for economies as well,” he said.
“Today, the world has belief in the Indian economy and that’s evident in the country receiving record FDI and FPI flows during the pandemic while the whole world was fretting about investments. To escalate this global confidence further, we have to scale up our domestic investments multiple times,” he observed. There was a particular need to enhance private investment in research and development, he noted.
‘Coordinate with MEA’
India needed a mechanism to react more swiftly to geopolitical developments and fill gaps that may arise in global supply chains, he stressed.
“You [industry] can take the help of the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) in this… better coordination between the foreign ministry, commerce, trade and industry bodies is the need of the hour,” he concluded.