Achieving the ambitious goal of becoming a developed nation by 2047 demands a decisive overhaul of current economic policies
The world is undergoing rapid political changes. With these geopolitical changes underway, it becomes imperative to relook at the current strategy for economic development to meet the declared target of achieving a developed nation status by 2047. It becomes necessary to realign and readjust the policy points with the changing circumstances. Countries become rich by producing and selling globally valuable and value-added products. India’s share in global trade has to grow rapidly from the present measly 1.8 per cent in goods exports and 2.8 per cent in goods imports. In the service sector too, India needs to enhance its share of delivered services upwards from the present 6 per cent. How will this happen? We need to take quantum measures and hard steps without caring for internal political expediency. Global political scenario may affect the choice of strategic steps but it can have, at best, limited effect if we as a nation are determined, focused and forthright.
Nothing can come in the way if we act united and our government performs its actions without fear or favour. The government’s backtracking on the Agriculture and Farm Bills of 2019 was an unfortunate incident. Such incidents should not recur. The government buckled under the fake protests by agro market middlemen masquerading as farmers who created a false show of protests to put spokes in the wheel of the Bills and sabotage them. The government, under fear of bourgeoning vandalism by anti-national elements to prevent the promulgation of Bills, backed by foreign enemy countries capitulated and rolled back the Bills. This should not have happened. The country paid a heavy price for this as agriculture is still the mainstay of India’s economy. If only those important Bills had been passed, we would have witnessed an economic growth rate increase of at least 2 per cent over the existing. Let our government bring back those Bills at the earliest appropriate time to provide a vital booster to our economy. The other important area that needs the urgent attention of the government is the MSME sector which continues to lie stagnant. This sector is the prime driver of employment growth and needs steps to facilitate the establishment of new units and expansion of the existing ones. These steps are—bureaucratic reforms to cut red tape and reduce unnecessary regulatory compliances that engender corruption and impede growth. To boost Indigenous manufacturing and increase the share of manufacturing in the national GDP from 16 per cent (almost stagnant since 2015) to upwards of 20 per cent, rebooting the entire Make in India program is needed. The blueprint of this otherwise visionary plan was, alas, not implemented seriously.