India must grow at 8-10% in 25 years to increase per capita income, create jobs
Premium- PM Modi said today’s India is preparing the roadmap for the next 25 years through ‘reforms by conviction’
NEW DELHI : India must grow by at least 8-10% in the next 25 years to raise per capita incomes, boost productivity and create jobs, Tharman Shanmugaratnam, senior minister of Singapore said on Friday.
“To lift per capita income significantly and to create many more jobs for a large young population, you need higher growth and 8-10% is the minimum that has to be achieved in the next 25 years," he said at the inaugural Arun Jaitley Memorial Lecture.
“India will have to accelerate the pace of reforms that has been started and reorient the role of government in to be able to build on the distinctive achievements of recent years," he said, while highlighting the Indian government’s achievements of large-scale provision of basic social amenities, digital and financial inclusion through Aadhaar and UPI.
The first speaker at the lecture, which finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman said will become an annual event, Shanmugaratnam said that India will be able to achieve this growth rate if it undertakes policy reforms, innovation in agriculture, simplifies labour laws and expands the production linked incentive (PLI) scheme to become a leader in exports.
He also added that India could achieve the growth rate by freeing-up people in low-productivity activities in the rural sector besides achieving convergence in the divergence of growth rates among states.
Shanmugaratnam also highlighted challenges of stagflation, which was further accentuated by the Russia-Ukraine conflict, structural shifts in environment and increased risks of pandemics which could derail social gains made by developing economies such as India.
Speaking at the event, Prime Minister Narendra Modi outlined the reform measures taken so far ranging from the goods and services tax (GST) and the insolvency and bankruptcy code (IBC) to opening up of the coal mining, space and atomic energy sector along with steps for financial inclusion. He said India had developed policies to ensure growth with inclusivity. “Instead of ‘reforms by compulsion’, today’s India is preparing the roadmap for the next 25 years through ‘reforms by conviction," Modi said, adding that the government sees reforms as a “win-win choice" for the welfare of the nation and the people, rather than a “necessary evil".
gulveen.aulakh@livemint.com